BECKY 075
by Akktri
Summary: Newt survived the crash at Fiorina 161 by trading bodies with a Xenomorph larva, but now is imprisoned in the USM Auriga, searching for missing memories.
1. Chapter 1: Becky

DAY 1

"I'm going to stick this up your rectum, okay?...Okay."

I opened my mouth to protest, but the little scientist lady was already lifting my tail, shoving some acid proof plastic thermometer up my rear.

I didn't know what country Vela Rols came from. Her facial features looked vaguely European, but her accent seemed almost Asian. It made communication difficult as hell. "I have a _mouth_ , you know. You don't necessarily need to keep poking me in the poop chute."

Vela blinked like a frog in a hailstorm. The more the intern talked to me, the more I wondered if she were merely playing dumb in order to manipulate me into doing what she wanted. She gave me that confused smile she always gives when I say something complicated. "I'm...sorry? Poop...chute?"

I groaned. " _My butt_. The point is, you can take my temperature in my mouth."

Another stupid grin. "Are you certain you want to do that? It has been... _below._ _It may taste bad."_

I sighed. Dumbass. " _I didn't mean now._ I meant _next time._ "

Blink blink blink. Vela acted like the idea of future tense was too complicated. "It will be just one more minute and I have temperature, and you will not have to have it in your rectum again until next time, okay?"

I dropped my shoulder plates in frustration, but I doubted she'd understand even that.

She took the thermometer out, recording my temperature.

I could easily grab her by the lab coat and kill her, but I didn't want to be like _them_ , like one of those _things_ that killed my parents, so I did the human thing and endured the humiliation like a good zoo animal. "I check your genitals for lumps now, yes?"

Instead of waiting for a reply, she pressed her gloved fingers to various places between my legs.

"Hey!" I said. "What?"

"We do not want you having cancers. We find, we cut out, yes?"

"No. Wait. That's not even how my body works! _They lay eggs!_ " `They', not `we.' I still couldn't accept the idea of something horrible like that coming out of my own body.

"I check that too. _I check every prostate you have."_

After checking for lumps, Vela pried apart part of my shell and took a blood sample. My body is covered in sore spots from her previous injections.

"Hey, where did you get your medical degree from? Because you obviously can't seem to find my veins..."

She actually looked _proud_! "I have an Associates in veterinary science. I can find a vein on elephant and camel. Yours is like all the others. It is not difficult to find."

 _"Could have fooled me."_

"I find your veins. I take samples. It is not my fault if you do not stay still."

"Are you going to check my blood pressure too? Because the way you did _that_ was genius."

The woman misunderstood. "Yes. I think it was great idea too...but they did not think you at risk for... _hypertension?_ I will inform them of your concerns."

She took her samples and data out of the room. I wish she'd stick them up _her_ rectum and get her own temperature!

Sigh. People like that are my only company. Once she was gone, I was alone again.

I picked up a steel mirror, took one look at my face, put it down.

Believing that I looked through a window at someone else that wasn't me, _that_ was how I coped.

They're windows to another world, I told myself.

That thing, that stranger, staring back at me, _not me_.

I looked away from my reflection, _that thing_ that mocked me with its copycat movements.

I lost track of time in my cell.

I lost track of _me_.

From this point onward, I am going to signpost my narrative with _facts._

 _Factual Item One: Identity._

Everyone thinks that I died on Fiorina 161. They said Rebecca Jorden's cryogenic pod smashed open and I drowned.

That's wrong.

 _An alien killed me._ It broke the glass of my pod and laid an egg in me.

I was asleep when it happened, but then, when I felt its nasty little baby burst out of my chest, I came right awake and spoke to it.

I don't know why I knew how to speak to it in its language, but I did. I told it to show me its "hidden tongue," a secret organ that all their kind have in the backs of their mouths.

I made the alien connect its worms to my brain.

I made the alien put her consciousness into my dying body while I took hers, made her feel what it's like to die.

Folks used to call me Newt. I don't know what you should call me now. Becky, I guess.

I don't have the same kind of body I used to have. People call me a Xenomorph because I look like a big black bug.

You know what I really am? _Lonely_.

Which brings us to:

 _Item Two: Location._

Right now, I live in a big metal drum, basically an animal cage in space. I didn't know where I was until a week after they moved me, when they at last got tired of me begging for a cell with a window.

The USM Auriga. It's a space station somewhere near Pluto. Nobody wanted to tell me what we were doing out there, but I guessed it was something important.

Honestly, no one wanted to talk to me at all, except maybe Bruno and Claudia, and even they didn't talk to me as much as I wanted them to. It's like going to the psychologist's office.

Item Three: Time.

It's Christmas. I know because they gave me a calendar, and I've been marking off the days. They gave me paper and scissors and tape, so I decorated my room with snowflakes and little Christmas trees and pictures of Santa.

I had a little MP3 player with a channel set up for Christmas songs. Chuck Berry's _Run Run Rudolph_. It made me think of mom and dad and Christmas back at the colony.

Dear Santa, I wrote. I want my old body back.

I crossed through it a second later. No, I don't want that. My old body is _dead_. _I want to be a living breathing human being again._

I crumpled the note and threw it away. Santa can't bring me what I want. If he could, he would have brought mom and dad back.

I decided to ask for something more realistic. _My freedom_ , or maybe, if I couldn't get that, a stationary exercise bike, or a musical instrument. If he gave me a guitar, I'd really try to play it, and maybe one day I could, I don't know, be another Johnny Cash?

I scratched through that last part too. Okay, I didn't care if I had a music career, I just wanted to learn how to play. I promised I wouldn't drool and melt it like I did that Erector set. A remote control on the flat screen TV would have been nice too. They always played the same old television programs. _The Love Boat. Gilligan's Island._

I heard the wall panel sliding open. Since they already gave me my dinner an hour ago (meatloaf again) I knew it was Bruno with more paperwork.

 _Item Four: I am subject to daily mental evaluations._

Despite how many times I promised not to hurt him, Bruno hid behind a bulletproof glass window, talking to me through an intercom. The man looked German, black haired with very angular facial features. With his black outfit and slicked down hair, he reminded me of that Dieter guy from all those _Saturday Night Live_ sketches, but not nearly as entertaining or friendly.

Oh, we talk, but it's not like a real conversation. This is basically how each visit goes: Bruno reads a bunch of questions off of a sheet. "... _Newt_ (like he doesn't know my name already!). How are you doing today?"

It doesn't matter what I say. On that particular day, I told him I was lonely and Christmas wasn't the same without a family.

He responded like a psychologist. "I'm sorry to hear that. Tell me, why isn't Christmas the same without a family?"

So I told him. I told a lot about myself in those sessions. When I asked for information about him in return, he was hesitant to give it. " _I'd prefer if we talk about you,"_ he would say, and other similar things.

I told him about Hadley's Hope. You know, Planet LV 426, about my school friends, and Christmas time back at the base.

He took notes and recordings, asked if I'd been pooping regularly.

There's a machine that he looked at, one that told him about my blood, my heart rate, my brain. They had probes stuck in several parts of my body, but he still asked me if I could poop and pee okay, if my stomach felt good, if I had an appetite, if I have sexual feelings or any other bodily issues that I need to report.

He then asked me who I was, if I still thought I used to be a girl named Rebecca Jorden.

I told him I wanted to watch _The Grinch_.

I told him I wanted a remote control for the TV.

"Maybe Santa can bring you that for Christmas," he said with a faint smirk.

I told him no, and showed him my Christmas list.

He told me to put it in the security tray "So Santa can read it later." It's that little cookie sheet-like thing they slide through the slot in the door at meal time. I did what he said and he took it away.

"I would ask Santa to put me in a human body, but I don't think he can do that, can he?"

He asked me how old I thought I was.

I said I didn't know, maybe eleven or twelve? But I felt much older than that. They had me on a base on earth for what felt like a _year_.

When he asked me about Ellen Ripley, I started crying.

Apparently not understanding how Xenomorphs behaved when they were sad, he asked me if I had a cold, even though he'd seen me crying before.

He asked me what happened on Fiorina 161, but he already knew. I wrote a book about it. He said to write out my anger, so I made the aliens super evil and scary. I wrote that the little girl died in the cryogenics tube because of an accident.

Sometimes I wished that were true.

At other times, I worried that I might just be an alien thinking she was once a girl, and it scared me.

Sometimes I had dreams where I made the claw thingy come out of my mouth and tear a hole in Bruno's skull. Ripley gets mad at me and comes after me with a gun. I woke up crying.

Back in reality, the wall slid closed again, and I got left alone for the rest of the day.

Someone thoughtfully put _The Grinch_ on the TV. I watched that and Tim Allen's _Santa Clause_. I drew pictures of my home in Hadley's Hope as I remembered it.

Outside my cell, I think I heard screams and gunshots. Could it be real, or just a memory of my escape from LV 426?

Nothing happens. The program changed to _Miracle on 34th Street_. I must have imagined the noises.

Just like how I imagined my dead brother Timmy standing in the cell with me.

He didn't talk, he just stared and paced the floor.

I looked away and he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2: Where The Head Hangs

DAY 1, AFTERNOON.

The screaming outside my prison faded. I wasn't sure what to make of it.

My brother returned.

"Timmy," I said to the ghost. "Why don't you speak to me?"

He didn't answer.

"Timmy! I love you! Don't you love me?"

He didn't say anything.

"If you love me, please, for the love of God, say something!"

Instead of answering, he disappeared again. I cried.

Was the ghost real? Was it a fact? Or did I imagine him?

I wished I were back home.

They dropped a bomb on The Colony. A big atomic bomb. My home, my friends, every link to my past, all vaporized.

No, it wasn't a bomb! _They blew up a reactor_!

I beat myself in the head. Stop forgetting things, you dumb alien girl!

 _Item Five: LV 426 was blown up by an atomic explosion._

 _Item Six: The people that run this place don't like it when I hurt myself._ One time I beat my head against a wall until it bled, and they jolted me with a cattle prod.

I hated the thing I'd become. Sometimes I wanted to kill myself. I had to keep reminding myself of what happened, and why I took over this body to begin with.

I'm better than _those things_ I told myself. I'm better than the people that imprisoned me. _I have to remember_.

 _Item Seven: I remember life on Archeron._

LV 426 didn't have much on its surface. Before they put in the terraforming equipment, the place mostly had a bunch of rocks and dirt, and you'd have to wear a space suit to go outside. Dust storms blew in all the time. Even when the place got terraformed, I'd cough and sneeze from all the dust flying around. It'd get in my eyes, making them red.

Still, they _did_ have kind of a Grand Canyon. The closest thing to The Grand Canyon that I'd ever get to see, at any rate: A vast crater, hundreds of miles across, with majestic cliffs and mesas and steppes...no cacti or sagebrush, of course. You'd have to be careful not to drive or walk across a stretch of powder that swallowed you up or rolled you down the foot of a cliff the moment you put weight on it, but I'll never forget how beautiful it all was. Pretty as a painting.

What did they call that place? Athena? The Majestic Crater? The memory has disappeared like the name of that big kid that helped me survive in the tunnels for all those weeks after the aliens killed everybody.

I grew up not knowing how it was to live on Earth. What I knew came only from books and recordings.

I asked Daddy if he'd ever seen a real duck and what it's like.

He told me he used to visit a local marina as a child. You could buy fish food and throw it to the ducks and catfish. The catfish would swarm around every morsel, giving the water the appearance of a boiling cauldron in their greedy frenzy to feed. He would intentionally throw food around the ducks, to give them interesting ride and make them peck at the fish nibbling at their legs.

He'd bounce morsels off the ducks' heads, aim it at their backs, laughing as some of the ducks floated around with food between their wings, in that hard to reach spot. Other ducks would snatch it off them and they'd get into fights. The ducks splashed, wiggled their tail feathers, floated in little armadas as they awaited the next morsel.

A lot of people at the dock were wasteful, just dumping the food into the school of catfish, but it was much more fun to bean the birds on their little noggins, watch them scramble to dip the bread crumb and gobble it down.

As an alien, I got briefly imprisoned on earth. I could see a lake with ducks out my cell window. My body was in larval stage still, so I didn't have the power to break the glass. In my dreams, I shatter the window and go out to feed them.

Now I just look at stars in this boring drum. I scratch a little man's face into the metal wall, with a little noose around his head. Below it I write, `Home is where you hang your head.' Just another attempt to make this little cage more personalized, more like a home.

My search for lost memories got interrupted by Vela, coming in for another medical check.

Apparently twenty four hours had passed without me noticing.

DAY 2

"Good morning...Becky?" Vela said to me like she had only met me for the first time. "How are we doing today?"

"Bored. I understand the need for the prison, but-"

"That's great to hear," she answered like I hadn't said anything. "How is your spouse, friend or domestic partner?"

I sighed. Everything that came out of her mouth sounded like a pre-recorded script.

"Oh. I am sorry. _You do not have anyone. That was silly of me._ " Nervous smile.

 _Silly?_ More like _insulting._ "Did you intentionally say that to make me feel bad, or was that an accident?"

"I am sorry. I am new to this. I try to make friend, okay?"

 _"You're doing a great job,"_ I said facetiously.

Vela smiled like I had just complimented her, lifting my tail as she took out the thermometer.

"Hey! Didn't you do that yesterday?" I yelled, but she already had it up my rear.

"This only take second."

"You have _probes_ stuck all over my body. You can read my pulse and my brain but you can't get a damn temperature without sticking a thing up my butt?"

"The temperature device is not giving accurate readings. I think perhaps you melted it?"

"I thought _I_ was supposed to be the anal prober!"

Vela gawked at me. _"You...said you did not do that."_

She could not see me rolling my eyes. "That was before I met you. _I'm really starting to understand the abductions now!_ "

The lady backed away in horror. "Please do not hurt me! You have promised not to hurt human beings, so please do not take back your word to not hurt human beings by hurting human beings, or me, please."

"I'm not going to hurt you," I said. " _I just want to take_ your _temperature._ "

Vela let out a yelp, quickly letting herself out of the room.

Since she hadn't bothered to take out the thermometer, I checked it myself, staring at the readout. "Is a hundred degrees normal?" I called after the woman.

I didn't get an answer, nor did she come back for a very long time.

 _Item Eight: Physiology._

My new body has a set of worm thingies that come out of my mouth. My upper palette opens up and they wiggle out. All I have to do is make my brain think about flexing that muscle I used to pee with. It's kind of like, I don't know, a video game where you change the controls, you know, making Mario jump with the B button instead of A, if that makes any sense.

The worms, I don't know what they're for, really. I know you can stick them in someone's brain and communicate with them, but I'm not really sure why an alien would have them. Maybe they use them for sex or something. All I know is, if your consciousness isn't in your own body when you die, it might go into the body you're plugged into.

My voice scared me the first time I inhabited this body. The vocal cords were not used to making the sounds my mind wanted them to make. Everything came out in a raspy growl, like the guys in those heavy metal rock bands that one of my classmates used to listen to.

English sounds didn't even come out at first, like one of those dreams where you're trying to tell someone something important and only whispers come out. I practiced with the Alphabet Song, just to make sure all the vowels and consonants were still there.

The body I took over could already speak and understand a language. That's how I got my murderer to obey me. I guess they naturally develop that stuff from birth, or the mother somehow injects the information into their egg with worms before they hatch.

It's a very simple language involving very little of the vocal cords I like to use, and a whole lot of body language. In fact, maybe my child body language was the main reason why I was able to order that larva around in the first place. I don't know, I'm just a kid.

The alien word for their species ( _the species of my new body_ , I mean) is _Ss'sik'chatokiwij_. It basically means `people,' but we're not talking about human people. Human beings call us `Xenomorphs,' but that just makes me think of one of those live action Japanese superhero shows. I drew Bruno a picture of a Mighty Morphin Xeno one time, but he didn't understand the joke.

People don't understand that I have eyes. On the outside, it looks like we don't, but it's really like those mirrors they have on cop shows. That's how I can appreciate things like the beautiful brown-gray house sparrows perched outside the window on my prison cell on earth, or, there at the station, the stars and pockmarks of asteroids on Pluto as the planetoid endlessly rotates in the sun's distant light.

 _Item Nine: My Christmas present sucks._

You'd think having an alien brain would make me smart, but I don't think it works like that. Claudia gave me this stupid 3D wooden snowflake puzzle and I still can't figure it out. With only nine interlocking pieces, you'd think it would be simple, but I guess I'm still a dumb-dumb.

You get five pieces that have sort of a `C' shape, three flat cross pieces with squares cut out of them, and a C shape with a skinny middle part, and you're supposed to somehow fit them together without any glue or sockets. I've spent _whole days_ trying to make it fit together, but the stupid thing keeps on falling apart in my hands, or before I can stand it up.

The thing makes me so mad! I always end up throwing the pieces at a wall and giving up in frustration. Grr!

I'm probably boring you, but I can't help it. There isn't a whole lot to do in here. This diary will probably sit on some scientist's desk and I'll still be here, lonely as ever! It's not fair!

 _Item Ten: Big Blue is my best friend._

When I was smaller, what they called a `larval state', they gave me a four foot tall stuffed dog toy. I called it `Big Blue' because of the color. I used to snuggle up with it every night. Then, on a weird impulse, I ripped open its back and slept inside its stomach.

It was the best sleep I'd ever had in this new body, but someone got scared and thought I escaped, so they took the dog away. I miss him a lot, even if I'm too big to fit inside him now.

 _Item Eleven: Forget what you've heard._

The story you heard about me being rescued by Space Marines was a reconstruction of my past memories, before I entered this chitinous alien body. It was a _cathartic_ work, something people at the compound said would help me feel better.

I _was_ terrified of the aliens that killed everyone in my family's colony. The Space Marines _were_ heroes, and that big bug thing that came out of that underground spaceship _was_ a bitch. That's what I felt at the time, and that's what came out in that anonymously submitted novel, and later a film simply entitled ` _Aliens._ '

The sequel to my memoirs was written in the same vein, though it wasn't true and it left a lot of details out. Suffice to say, despite the story about my clean bill of health (I simply die from a pod malfunction during the crash) the big bug alien _had_ hatched its larva from my chest cavity, but I knew the alien's secrets, so I lived on.

I have since learned to forgive the big bug, and after our little adventure on the prison colony on Fiorina 161, we at last made peace. While imprisoned in a secret government facility on Earth, we exchanged letters, and I and the queen eventually talked. I can't forget what she did, but I at least understand her a little better now, and I can move on.

 _Item Number Eleven: I have a `rescuer.'_

The door to my cell suddenly opened, giving me a glimpse of the space station's interior. Very seldom do I get the luxury of seeing such things without someone with a cattleprod blocking the view.

I didn't see anyone out there. I decided to take a look around.

When I heard a familiar voice shouting my name, my heart nearly beat out of my chest.

"Newt! Newt! Where are you!"

I rushed out the open door, into the gray laboratory room I saw every day through bulletproof glass. Computers, chemical supplies, triple reinforced glass tanks containing alien larva and face hugging socmavaj.

And there she was, just as I remembered her. A tall slender woman with a stern angular face and thick brown curls framing her face. I didn't understand why she had on desert camo fatigues, but it didn't matter, I was still overjoyed to see her. "Ripley!"

"C'mon, Newt! Time to go!"

"You came to rescue me! _You actually came back for me!"_

The woman rolled her eyes. " _You have a lot of friends looking for you_. We should get out of here while the getting's good."

I saw no sign of recognition on the woman's features, like she had merely been sent on this rescue mission by someone else. I guess it shouldn't surprise me. _I_ didn't look the same either.

A hexagonally shaped corridor lay outside the entrance to the lab. The moment the woman rushed out there, I saw a flash, and her body got stuck with dozens of tranquilizer darts. She collapsed on the floor.

Four men in white biohazard suits carried Ripley away.

I got scared, retreating back into my cell.

 _Item Twelve: I remember being imprisoned in a place called Ghost Island, a paramilitary compound somewhere on earth._

One day, a researcher had me brought into a special room. An upper floor, kind of a neat place. Lots of sunlight, and a wonderful view of the small forest beyond. I loved watching the geese and little things happening along the ground from the narrow bulletproof windows. I also had _toys_.

"Subject is a small xenomorph larva, tube shaped body and sharp little teeth," the man said into a recorder. "Its dainty limbs are occupied playing with a circa 1970's Winnie the Pooh playset. She seems harmless, but as a precaution we have her placed behind a barrier of bulletproof material."

A framed picture of the Cat in the Hat hung on the wall above a toy box filled with assorted amusements. I had a flat screen TV and a little bookcase. The playset, a plastic tree with a treehouse at the top, stood on the top of a circular table, which I climbed upon to place dolls inside.

"Her body, although worm-like in shape, has a hard exoskeleton which allows her to easily perform child-like activities. She is silently mouthing things as she plays alone."

The man's section of the room had a more functional and business-like design. File cabinets for case information, a computer and a desk, a ficus in the corner, the only bit of silliness a framed picture of _The Trollusk and the Hat._

Cameras and microphones had been set up in several key locations to record me, one camera, he told me, was was infrared, to monitor my internal bodily processes.

"Hello," the man said to me. "My name is Doctor Robert South. What is your name?

I didn't look away from my toys. "Rebecca Ann Jorden. My friends call me _Newt_."

"Newt-"

"It's _Ms. Jorden_ to you." I interrupted.

"Right. _Ms. Jorden_. You speak English quite well for a xenomorph. Can you tell me a little something about that?"

I set down my doll, staring at him. "I've always speaked English. Mommy and daddy taught me. "

I placed a little doll in a plastic rocking chair. "How come you don't have Pooh and the owl to complete the set?"

The man smiled. " _They got lost._ It's a very old toy."

"It looks brand new to me. The color isn't even faded."

"It's been in storage for awhile. We don't get many children around here. Tell me something. How can you _see_?"

I told him about my see-through dome. "...are you scared of me?"

He had been taking notes with a pen, but the line got messed up. "I have to admit, a little. Why?"

"I can kinda see your heart beating. It's a warm spot in the middle of the cooler area."

He _did_ look scared. I noticed him nervously tugging on his collar. "So you see heat?"

"Yes, but I can also _read_."

Pop! A pigeon smacked against my window. I giggled.

"I've been told that xenomorphs don't see at all," the man said. "I heard they're guided by _smell_."

"We're called _Ss'sik'chtokiwij_ , and whoever said that we can't see is wrong." I tilted my head. "You're wearing a blue shirt with a black tie."

"Where do you come from? Where is your home?"

"Planet LV 426. The Hadley's Hope colony." I sighed, suddenly depressed. "Of course it's not there anymore. It got blowed up."

"I've seen pictures of Rebecca Jorden. Her body was in a morgue at Fiorina 161, then incinerated. Are you sure you're really her?"

 _"Are you really sure you're you?"_

"I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I don't either. All I know is, I died, I went to heaven, and somehow I ended up in this body."

The man leaned forward in his chair, perhaps thinking he had somehow stumbled upon an official alien religion. "You mean like reincarnation?"

"What's that?"

He explained the concept to me.

"That's dumb. What if you're wrong, and you don't get another chance?

He nodded. "Apparently _you did_ , didn't you?"

"That's different. I went to heaven and saw _Jesus_. He said he made a special exception, so I could help the Ss'sik'chtokiwij. He said when my task is done, I'll be able to stay with my mommy and daddy forever, with him."

The man muttered to his recorder. "Subject seems genuinely saddened by this alleged exile from heaven. What could this creature have possibly encountered on Fiorina to produce such mental delusions?" To me, he said, "Ms. Jorden, how did you die?

"It happened after Ripley put me to sleep in that pod..."

I told him the real story.

"I heard about that. She drowned in her pod."

"You're wrong. I didn't drown. Ernie's grandmother laid an egg in my chest. " I sighed. "But I've forgiven her for that."

He spoke into his recorder. The `Ernie' she refers to is Subject 78453760, an adult xenomorph who is currently working on the completion of an online seminary degree. The `grandmother', according to record, is Subject 94202227, the massive egg laying queen discovered by the scientific research division at Hadley's Hope and at Fiorina. I have explored the psychology of these two in other interviews." He looked up at me again. "There were no signs of larva hatching from the girl's body."

"Did you see the body yourself?"

The man didn't answer.

"Well, then you don't know. It came out of my body, I died, and then I took this thing's body. Because of Jesus."

 _"That's some story!"_

"It's true." I snapped together some gray Legos, trying to build a castle. "When can I have Big Blue back?"

"I'm not sure."

I set up a square perimeter of blocks on the green board that came with the Lego set. "Ernie was supposed to sew me a special pouch, like a sleeping bag. Inside him. Has she started yet? No one wants to tell me."

To the recorder, the man said, "Subject 78453760 has a skill for sewing. She's been allowed knitting tools, but she remains under constant surveillance. Right now, she's working on the Last Supper in needlepoint. I heard nothing about a stuffed dog." He cleared his throat, addressing me. "I'm sorry. I don't have that information."

 _"Can you ask someone who does?"_

I recently found a transcript of our interview. It revealed a lot of stuff that the man didn't tell me out loud, or I apparently didn't hear, like that part about my so-called `delusion' of being a human girl. I'm including it here.

[0000]

* * *

DOCUMENT ID #000741011611601:

Interview with Subject 2294963 - Ghost Island Facility, Earth

LIMITED DISTRIBUTION - DESTROY AS "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY"

...The creature was surprisingly intelligent for her species. I continued to be surprised by how humanlike her thought process was. Her sense of justice, of personal entitlement, her stubbornness...

" I...I can't promise you anything," I said.

The purpose of this interview was to establish what "Newt" is capable of, militaristically speaking. The Ernie specimen proved to be something of a pacifist, so we hoped for a better military application with this one.

To this end, the staff installed sort of a protected movie screen in Newt's cell, running action movies and war films 24-7, with a few shows from the military channel thrown in for good measure. Her favorite so far appears to be _Airwolf_. Of course, despite all the explosions, the program generally tends to be nonviolent and wholesome. The helicopter seldom guns down soldiers on the ground. And even then, when it came on, she often played with her back to the screen.

"What did you think about the movie last night?" I glanced at a card listing the showings. I would never let a kid watch some of these movies. "... _The Expendables_?

She gave me an indifferent shrug. "It was all right. I didn't like all that violence, though."

An alleged child. Hating the naughty types of films that normal kids would sneak away and watch when their parents aren't looking. This made me smile a little. "How about _The Terminator_? That one had robots in it."

"I guess that was okay," she said, finishing up a second Lego side wall. "Why do you keep showing me violent movies for? Why can't I watch something about wizards and princesses?"

"It's just an experiment."

"I don't like this experiment. It makes it hard for me to sleep. It reminds me of that movie where they poked that guy's eyelids open with toothpicks and made him watch stuff."

Trying to complete the thought, I suggested, " _A Clockwork Orange?_ "

"I...think. Was that the one where the dog throws up in a guy's shoe and gets put in obedience school?"

"No. That's...something else." I later found out this was a reference to Spielberg's _Amazing Stories_.

"Anyways, I don't like it. I don't like movies where people get all bloody and get killed. I see too much of that in real life."

I stuck with the agenda. "I'm afraid that's a fact of life. It's unavoidable. Even _the bible_ is full of violence..."

"That's not the same thing. Jesus didn't shoot and kill people."

Impressive. Not only was I debating morality with a larval xenomorph, there was theology entering the discussion. "How did you learn about Jesus?"

"From mommy and daddy. They took me to church."

Still consistent with what she previously stated. The creature truly believed she was human in an alien body. "This was when you were human?"

"Yeah."

Human or not, it was not my job to convince her what she was. "Newt, I mean, _Ms. Jorden..._ Do you remember that episode of NCIS we showed you? The one where Dinozo rescues Ziva from that holding cell in the desert?"

"That was kinda boring."

"I mention this because I want to know something. Say one of your friends gets kidnapped by a bad man, and they're being held prisoner in some terrible place. What would _you_ do about it?"

Her Lego castle had four walls now. She put a little man and a flag on the parapet. "I guess I'd...forgive them, and let them _stick me in a cell_ in a _secret military base_."

It seemed even aliens had sarcasm.

 _"So you think we're bad people."_

She shrugged. "When I see those movies, I think of killing people here to escape. But then I think about how the guards might have _wives_ , or _kids._ I pray about it sometimes. Why can't I go outside? I'm tired of being cooped up indoors!"

Her thoughts seemed to bounce from one thing to another, just like a human child. I decided to address the latter question first. "I'm sorry. That's just not safe."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone. Like I said, Ernie said I shouldn't hurt people."

Her argument was convincing, but there were rules. Plus, if she ever snapped... "I'm sorry. It's not possible."

She scampered up to the glass, appearing to stare at me intently. "I saw Canada geese. Can I see Ernie?"

"I'm sorry. Not yet."

"When?"

I had a sudden flashback of my son pestering me as I typed away on the computer. I shook the thought away, wondering if the creature caught its prey by convincing them to let their guard down.

"I'm sorry. I have to do what upper management tells me."

[0000]

* * *

I don't remember what happened after that interview. I probably just sat in my old cell some more.


	3. Chapter 3: Mara

I only look like a big scary alien on the outside. I'm still a dumb kid, or maybe a dumb teenager. Honestly, I'm not really sure what I am.

I don't remember my last birthday. It's gone with that...um, _thing...What was that again?_

Dammit. It's like an itch. There's something... _I knewd. Something...that happened to me_.

It's gone again. Gone forever, I guess.

It's like that time I tried to download Daddy's camera into a computer and erased all the files. We tried a recovery program, but it only brought back the newest image, a picture of some nekkid lady Daddy thought he deleted. Mom saw it and started yelling at him.

We lost the pictures we took of grandma before she passed (or was it Old Jane from the machine shop? She and mom were _close_ ). Stupid memory! Stupid brain!

Never mind. The point is, I'm an alien with a dumb human brain. That's why I didn't try to escape when Ripley came to rescue me and the doors were wide open.

Or maybe I was being smart. I don't know.

 _Thirteen: Escape from this place is impossible._

I mean, I know I'm out in space somewhere, on a space station. I can't just break a window and run away to earth. Ripley may have just been an escaped prisoner like me.

I don't know the first thing about the space station. All I know is its name. _Auriga_. It sounds like what Speedy Gonzales says when he's running from the coyote, or whatever animal he runs from.

The thought _had_ occurred to me that maybe I was in a movie set, and they were only projecting images of space on my window, but I don't want to test that theory out. I don't want to be proven wrong. _Not about that._

My other thought was that my open cell and Ripley's appearance was one of those elaborate tests they put mice through, and the moment I got outside I'd find the floors electrified and I'd have to jump through a hoop to get a glass of water. So, instead of escaping I explored the lab.

 _Fourteen: Scientists live more comfortably than their guinea pig._

The little lab had the shape of a hexagonal prism. In some ways, it reminded me of a trailer home, like the modular dwellings we had on Hadley's Hope, my home colony.

Seeing those rows of glass tanks with socmavaj in them reminded me of the last days, when a man locked me and Ripley in a room and tried to get one of them to lay eggs in us.

I caught my reflection in the glass, shuddered, looked away.

Off in the corner, I saw Bruno's little observation area. He had a futon to lay on (I've never seen him use it. I guess he closed the window shield first, so I wouldn't scare him), a set of computers monitoring my vitals (my pulse looked pretty steady), a flat panel TV, and a second computer Bruno used for reports, I guess.

A long work table lay behind the TV, one I had previously been unable to see from within the drum, its surfaces scattered with various biology experiments, dissected socmavaj, dissected larva, diagrams, notebooks, photographs, mice and guinea pigs in cages, some scarred and missing patches of hair, vials of various samples (possibly my blood and saliva), the skulls and organs of larger dead aliens.

My drawings and writings had been carelessly stuffed into a cardboard box on the floor below, many more in a blue recycling bin.

My letter to Santa lay in the blue bin.

I pulled it out, spread it on the work table, then cried a little before crumpling it up and and throwing it back in. So much for Christmas.

The cabinets above the table contained chemicals, rock samples, more alien specimens.

I also found a few of _my_ specimens in sealed glass containers, prompting me to sing this song: _"I'm saving your poop in a jar, to remind me just what you are, you're a pile of poop, saving your poop in a jar..."_ It made me feel a little less angry about them throwing away my papers.

The lab had a tiny coffin-like bathroom with a shower. You pretty much had to sit on the toilet to wash yourself. No one had _ever_ bothered to bathe _me_ , so I stepped into the compartment and closed the door.

I've never had a problem with claustrophobia. Heights maybe, but never claustrophobia. Still, it _was_ cramped, and I could hear noises through the walls that made me wonder if the ship were going to break apart and leave me floating through the depths of space in that little compartment.

I figured out that the rubber button on the wall activated the vacuum operated flush toilet, but the shower controls mystified me. You operated the temperature and spray pressure with the same lever-like knob, and you pressed a little silver button to get it going. At first, the water just came out of the handheld sprayer in a little trickle, so I kept on pushing the button until it gushed out in a passable dribble.

As I was finishing up, and looking around for a towel, the water suddenly came spraying from the nozzle full blast and wouldn't shut off. I hurried back into the lab, slamming the door shut behind me.

Seeing no towels, I shook myself dry, resuming my wandering.

The place featured a bookcase and a video library. Bruno appeared to like mysteries and fantasy stories about barbarians ravishing enslaved women. The bodice rippers, I guess, were Claudia's.

A big yellow cabinet stood near the exit, marked with a warning about hazardous chemicals. I tried to open it, but it was locked. I moved on to the walk-in kitchen.

Bruno had access to a small sink, a coffee machine, a refrigerator and a microwave. The fridge contained water bottles, soda and food, pizza, pork chops, Chinese food and Hot Pockets.

I ate a couple slices of pizza, washing them down with a Pepsi, then found myself throwing up.

 _Dammit,_ I thought as I watched my barf burning a hole in the metal flooring. _I thought it was only chocolate and Skittles that made me sick._ I guess I'm diabetic or something.

I rinsed my mouth out with water, explored the back corner.

Past Bruno's clothes closet (he wore a lot of black) I found a storage room.

Amidst the discarded scientific books, computer equipment (memory cores, monitors, etc), scientific tools (robotic arms, magnifying lamps, surgical kits), medical supplies and other such odds and ends, I found storage containers full of oddly familiar items. Objects from LV 426, it seemed, perhaps rescued from the exploded debris and run through a decontamination process.

They'd mostly gathered the small things, dolls, clothing, toy race cars, stuffed toys like an owl Beanie Baby, a busted up Nintendo DS, and a plastic Millennium Falcon that looked like it had lost the war.

The more I looked through these items, the more memories came rushing back. I could almost match them to a name and a face.

A scorpion paperweight from Arizona belonging to Mrs. James, my school teacher.

A quilt that mom sewed for me with her own (claws) _hands_.

A butterfly hair clip that always perched on top of that...one Mexican girl that always sat in the back of my math class. _Maritza_ , I think her name was.

Then, as I was pulling a box out from under a shelf, I found _him_. A lopsided flop eared stuffed toy with orange plastic eyes and a stiff four foot tall body coated in plush blue fur.

"Big Blue!" I exclaimed, gathering him in my arms.

The sound of footsteps interrupted this happy reunion. There was someone in the lab!

"Hello?" I called, then, realizing how announcing my presence would result in joltings with a cattle prod, quickly covered my mouth.

With Big Blue in one claw, I crept out of the storage room, looking around.

Although being an alien didn't make me any smarter, it _did_ seem to make my senses sharper. I caught a whiff of lasagna, wine, cigarettes and lady's perfume, mingled with sweat and sex smells. My ears, or whatever it was that I used to hear with, picked up breathing sounds, not terribly loud, but enough to indicate where the smell came from.

I crept around a row of tanks and found Bruno cowering on the floor, staring up at me, bug eyed in terror. "Please, don't hurt me!"

I stared at the man, thinking about those dreams where my mouth claw punched a hole through his forehead. "You want a Pepsi? I only drank half of it before throwing up. I'd hate for it to go to waste."

The man's face was pale, his eyes wide in fright.

What do you do when a fifty pound gorilla or a big scary alien offers you a drink? "Y-yes. I will take Pepsi."

I brought him the can, watching him miss his mouth as he attempted to slurp from the can.

"I heard screaming," I said. "What happened out here?"

Bruno, with trembling hands, moved the can to the proper place at his lips, swallowing fizzy brown liquid. "I...do not know. I...had men guarding the room, and now they are dead. What did you do?"

 _Item Fifteen: Someone killed the guards, possibly an alien. Possibly the ones that came to rescue me._

 _"Me?"_ I cried. _"But I was in my room the whole time!"_

"Yes," he stammered. I could tell he didn't believe me, but he didn't want to piss me off by saying so. " _Of course you were not._ My apologies."

I think the slime residue I left on the can was burning him, at least a little. He frowned, wiped his lips.

 _Sixteen: Superhuman sensory perception can be depressing._

I sniffed. "Who did you have sex with? _Claudia?"_

Bruno laughed. It was a nervous barking laugh one would give an executioner that said something ridiculous. _"Good God, no!"_

He coughed, looked flustered. "Must I tell you this most personal detail? Begging your forgiveness, but human beings are uncomfortable when talking about personal lives."

Can you believe the nerve of this guy? What about _my_ discomfort? _"I've_ told you everything about _me._ I want to hear something about _you."_

He swallowed hard. "Her name is... _Amanda._ She works in _maintenance and kitchen._ I do not care for her smoking or her singing, _but her thighs are divine_. May I get off the floor, please?"

I giggled. "You're into thighs, huh?"

Bruno reddened. "I am into whole body, but especially thighs."

"You talk funny when you're scared."

"That is what humans do. Can I get up please?"

I shrugged. "No one's stopping you."

He shakily got to his feet.

On a weird impulse, I blurted, "Do you like my thighs?"

I thought he was going to faint right there. "You...are an alien. Please do not kill me if I say that I find alien legs unsexy."

I frowned as I stared down at my body, awash in feelings of inadequacy, depression and self loathing. I sighed in despair.

"You...truly know of no other aliens with which to copulate?"

"No," I muttered, dispirited.

Having no good reply, he pointed to the stuffed dog. _"I see you have found your toy."_

"Yes. And...other stuff from home." Then, in a resentful tone, " _Nice of you to keep it for me._ "

"I'm sorry." His tone indicated that he was not. "I was not permitted to give these things to you. I had orders."

I answered, "It's okay. You can keep them. I just wish you would have asked me first."

He swallowed. _"I'm sorry. There were rules."_

I pointed to his computer. "What games do you got on there?"

I'd just finished playing Majong and had almost gotten through a level of _X-Com: Terror from the Deep_ when that nasty little black haired android of his rushed into the room and zapped me with a cattle prod, forcing me back into my cell.

See what I mean? I'm a dumb-dumb.

DAY 3

I said my prayers every day I woke up, though I didn't know what good they actually accomplished.

I prayed for my school friends from The Colony, Sarah, Jonie and Stephanie. I didn't know if they were still alive, but I prayed for them anyway, if only so they can get to heaven.

Not everyone at Hadley's Hope died. Sometimes people took shuttles back to Earth before the attacks, or moved on to other planets. There was Emily, Joel, Henry and Jessica. I think they're alive and well.

I also prayed to Mommy and Daddy and Grandma in heaven. I don't know if you're supposed to do that, but it made me feel less alone. Sometimes I think they even talk back.

I got Big Blue back. He helped me to sleep last night. I told Mom and Dad about him. The lights flickered. I thought that meant they were happy for me.

I did something bad. I kinda stole a container of hot pink lipstick and hid it in the dog. I think it belonged to Claudia. I went to my little mirror and tried some on. It looked weird. I guess not all shades go with all skin colors, huh? Maybe if I used _blue_ or some other cool color, it would match better with my face. Or maybe a sharp cherry red?

Who am I trying to fool? How could I be sexy in a body like that? Even if I could somehow escape my cell, who in their right mind would go out with me?

When I put the lipstick back within the dog's polyester stuffing, my claw brushed against something flat and rough textured. I pulled the object out and stared at it.

Somehow a green uniform patch had found its way in there, a patch depicting the head of a sinister looking snake emerging from the center of a lotus flower. The acronym DAMBALLAH had been stitched across the bottom.

Unconsciously, I put a claw to the top of my head. DAMBALLAH. Why did I remember that word?

I stared at the patch for a solid minute, but no matter how hard I squinted my eyes (or whatever it was that I had) I found myself unable to stare any answers out of it.

I heard the food hatch sliding open. In came bacon, eggs and hash browns, accompanied by a shiny black plastic box.

The box was a makeup kit. Brushes, powders, foundation, lipstick, mascara, eye shadow, the whole nine yards.

As a gift, or maybe an experiment, I could see maybe why they'd give me facial powder, but _eye shadow?_

I glanced at the closed viewing window with puzzlement. Obviously they must have had cameras, and had seen me putting on lipstick, but why all the kindness all of a sudden? Was it the holiday spirit?

Deciding it would do me no harm, I experimented with the stuff, attempting to doll my face up like a person.

The results were not to my liking. I spent several minutes trying to scrub the stuff off. I thought I heard laughter on the other side of the wall.

At last a tray came in with some rags and various facial cleaning agents. An attached note read, _`I have some other makeup, but it's a little Halloweeny. Let me know if you're interested. - C.'_

I cleaned my face, but kept the cherry red lipstick. If I covered the rest of my face, it kinda sorta looked like the lips from the opening of the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_.

The kit also had nail polish. I ate a little of my food and painted the tips of my claws different colors.

It looked kind of nice. Smelled nice, too. I never knew how much I missed ordinary chemical smells like that.

It smelled like my childhood. And mother.

It smelled like the life I lost.

The metal shield came open, and I was looking at Claudia.

Claudia reminded me of Natalie from _The Facts of Life_ , clad in a gray jumpsuit. Her rounded face, with the jowls and all, was bulldog-like, her body stocky and short. I'd even seen her putting her red-brown hair up in pigtails a few times, but I heard she stopped doing that due to rude comments about bell pulls. `Ding-dong!' and all that.

You might think it's weird that I mention old shows and stuff from the eighties, but my dad was always a strange bird. Some people like watching old black and white films from the silent era. Dad preferred classic TV.

Plus, living on a rocky planet light years away from earth prevented us from watching most of the current stuff, and dad thought the new stuff wasn't that good anyway.

He's probably right. People keep recycling old ideas and putting extra nudity and violence in them. I heard they even made a new version of _Good Times_ where everybody walks around naked.

A media company specialized in putting whole catalogs of old television series on flash drives and sending them to people in space, and dad liked to trade for them. That's generally what we watched when we were at home, instead of the newest gore filled vigilante cop adventures and _The New Naked I Love Lucy Show_.

 _"I see you like the nail polish,"_ Claudia said with a smile.

"You think the lipstick looks good?" I asked her.

She answered with an amused snort.

I looked in the mirror and saw that the lipstick was bubbling.

"Are you experiencing any itching sensations?" she asked. _"Unpleasant burning or irritation?"_

"No," I said, though the suggestion of such things made me scratch my dome. "Why are you giving me all this stuff?"

Claudia shrugged. " _Merry Christmas._ "

I sighed. "You throw away my drawings and my letters to Santa, but you save my poop."

" _This is a scientific study._ I'm sorry." Her face said she wasn't really. "We send a few scans to HQ every once and awhile, but they're not that interested in your artwork."

 _"What about you? Are you_ interested in my artwork?"

"We're not allowed to take samples back to our rooms." Nonverbally, this conveyed the tone of a snobby art gallery owner trying to politely explain that an artist's work is trash, as if to say, ` _I'm sorry, I'm sure your piece is wonderful, but unfortunately it does not fit with this gallery's current needs._ '

"You don't even put it in a frame or a refrigerator."

Again with the snob face. _"I'm sorry, but there are_ rules about how we are allowed to decorate this area." The tone said, `Your work really isn't that good.'

I ate my eggs, and as I did, I started thinking about the irony of this meal, about the big slimy green things that split open around the top, allowing the big pink spider things to burst out and latch onto people's faces. I figured if chickens could pull off a trick like that, no one would want to eat them. The thought made me laugh.

"Something funny you'd like to share?" Claudia asked me.

 _`...With the class?'_ The memory of my teacher saying this popped unbidden into my mind, but it was gone before I could remember the context.

And then I thought, Claudia thinks my writing is shit, and, what, _she now wants me to share my thoughts with her?_ "It's nothing."

But then, thinking about the gift of the nail polish, I muttered, "It's stupid. I just...thought of that old knock knock joke. You know, `Orange you glad I didn't say banana?'"

I tried explaining what made me laugh before, and it's more trouble than it's worth. A lot of times, I have to belabor the point and kill the joke before they begin to understand the humor. I think sometimes they do it on purpose, just to be mean.

"So," she said. "I hear you like video games."

I nodded. "Where did you get X-Com? It looks really old."

 _"It's an emulation._ Bruno knows more about that than I do. Other than that one, what's your favorite game?"

I frowned and stared at a wall. It had been so long since I'd been allowed to touch a computer or electronic device that it took me a minute. "That...one game where you're a monkey and you have to walk across a giant crossword puzzle in a big pit, and throw poop at people? Uh... _Mr. Waffles_ , I think that's what it's called. And then there's the one where you're a snake and you go around eating mice and stuff? _Fangs of Glory?_ No, wait. That's not it..." I shook my head in frustration. "There's also this dumb one where you're an eggplant, but it has really good music. Daddy said that people were high when they made that one."

I told her about the others I liked as I finished the rest of my meal.

"Did you want to try that other makeup?" Claudia asked me.

I told her no thanks. "I don't know how to make myself pretty anymore."

She asked me if my stomach felt okay, then asked me the same questions they'd been asking me for days. Was I experiencing any medical problems that they should be aware of. Did I feel sick in any way. How did I become this creature. What was the phrase, the body language I used to make the thing trade bodies with me. Do I feel like laying eggs yet, why or why not. Who were my parents. Have I received any messages from other aliens, telepathic or otherwise. Did I still believe I was human.

 _Do I_ believe I'm human?

 _Am I still human?_

They've asked me this so many times, in so many different ways, that I've begun to wonder about it myself. "What's DAMBALLAH?"

Claudia stared at me. Forced snob laugh. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure I understand the question."

I held up the patch. "I've seen this symbol before. _It means something._ What is DAMBALLAH?"

"Where did you get that!" the woman cried.

I shrugged. "It was inside my dog. Big Blue."

Claudia frowned, muttered to herself about something falling out of a box.

The woman glanced nervously over her shoulder. "I suppose you're not going to tell anyone, are you?" Fake laugh. "Of course you're not. _Really, who are you going to tell._ "

She cleared her throat. "DAMBALLAH is a special projects wing of the Unified Government. _You_ are a special project."

"Which government? America?"

Claudia rolled her eyes. " _America is just a landmass._ The Unified Socialist Government _is_ the government."

It felt like I had this conversation before, but that's what happens when you have gaps in your memory.

 _Fact Sixteen: Earth isn't the pretty place I remembered hearing about. A lot has changed._

I had a flash of a memory in which my school friend and I were walking through the base at Hadley's Hope. It had something to do with DAMBALLAH. A big tough kid was with us. We were...trying to escape from the aliens. We turned a corner, and...we ran into the base's hydroponics center.

My friends...had prepared a surprise birthday party for me there.

Wait, no, _those were two separate memories._

Dammit.

I struggled with trying to remember for over a minute before giving up.

"Did that answer your question?" Claudia asked.

DAMBALLAH. I'm certain those memories had some connection with my brain problem.

I nodded, shook my head. "I...I don't know. I...guess it does."

"I'll see you tomorrow," she said, turning away.

"Wait!" I protested, but the shield slid closed, and I was alone again.

Two hours later, the plate slid back open, and a narrow blonde woman with a punk rocker hairdo and a gray jumpsuit peered through the glass at me.

Flawlessly perfect, unblemished Romanesque features. She smiled, gave me a friendly wave.

I thought for a minute that I was hallucinating. After all, the woman looked identical to the mother of a friend I had on LV 426. But then, as I approached the window, I could smell _robot chemicals._

 _She was a synth_ , just like Bruno's mechanical friend with the cattleprod.

Being desperate for companionship, I thought `What the heck' and waved back.

The stranger pointed to the window. "Do you mind if I leave this open?"

I nodded. "Please!"

 _Item Seventeen: I have robot friends._

The android turned on a stereo and cleaned to the tune of _I'm Just a Singer_ by The Moody Blues, kinda dancing around as she wiped the glass and vacuumed.

A few minutes later, the door to my cell came open, and in came a woman that looked identical to her, this one with her long hair in a ponytail, and an armload of cleaning supplies.

Ordinarily, Datisi, the small black haired robot, took care of my room, scrubbing, scouring my toilet, cleaning up whatever messes I made. That is, at least, when I didn't clean them up myself. They had recently given me tools and such for that task.

The woman closed the door behind herself, something only a droid or a suicidal human being would dare to do.

I sat up straight, put my arms behind my back to show that I wasn't a threat. "Hi! Who are you?"

"My name is Mara. And your name is Newt, correct?"

I nodded. " _I was._ You can call me Becky if you want."

The android smiled. "I once knew a little girl by that name."

My pulse quickened. "Was her name Rebecca Jorden?"

Mara looked astonished. _"Yes it was! How did you know?"_

"I'm her. I mean, _I was_." I told her about how I died and took over the alien's body.

Shockingly, she didn't seem to question my story at all. "I remember your parents. Russ and Anne were good people."

 _Eighteen: By some minor miracle, my new android friend followed me from my blown up home planet._

Mara set her supplies down, coming closer. "You poor child! You're all alone here, aren't you?"

I found myself crying without wanting to. I couldn't speak, I just nodded.

Mara spread her arms. " _Come here and give me a hug._ "

I fell sobbing into her arms.


	4. Chapter 4: Lacy

I didn't want to let go of her. I had been alone too long, without the slightest human contact. "I love you," I sobbed.

Mara smiled and rubbed my back. "I love you too."

I didn't have skin anymore, just a shell, but it still felt wonderful, _just...holding someone_.

"Can you be my mother? I mean, I don't have one right now, and no family, neither...You're the only one who seems to understand me and accept me for what I am...Could you? I mean, _would you_ be my mom? Please?"

She rubbed my head. It felt kinda weird, like I were a horse being petted, because I didn't have any hair and my skull had an elongated banana shape, but it was a good kind of weird. _"That depends on whether or not you decide to call me mother._ "

I was overjoyed. Best gift I had received in years. "Okay, _mom._ "

I swallowed. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you died when they blewd up LV 426!"

She looked sad. "My...memory core was recovered from the debris. Remind me to give you proper English lessons, young lady. You need them."

I pointed a claw at the window. "Who's your spiky haired friend?"

Mara grinned. "That is _Big Bird._ "

What a dumb name, I thought with a frown. _"Why is she called that?_ "

"Her intelligence matrix derives from Sesame Street educational software."

"She doesn't act like Big Bird. I never saw Big Bird spike his hair and dance to disco music before. Plus he's supposed to be male."

"Her programming interacted with an extraterrestrial intelligence, making her self aware."

The explanation echoed through my mind, as if I'd heard it before.

 _"So he doesn't talk to Snuffleupagus and curl up at night with a giant letter B?"_

"No, but from time to time she _does_ curl up with the collected works of Pablo Neruda."

I changed the subject. "I know a lot of kids died on my home planet, but some of them got away. I know for a fact that Suzie Ward left on a shuttle _way_ before all that bad stuff started. We used to play together."

She froze, statue-like, I guess to process the question. "Recent hospital records indicate that she is pregnant and living in Tucson Arizona."

"What about Mika Cosgrove? She went to class with me."

 _"Processing. Please wait."_ She went mannequin. "Unable to access records." Then, to add a little humanity to her behavior, she gave me a kindly smile and said, _"I'll ask around."_

"Do you think Uncle Robert went to heaven?"

"Insufficient data." Mara gave me her best apologetic look. _"Would it make you happy if I said that I did?"_

"I don't know. I mean, _he's family_ , but I keep wondering if some people aren't good enough, especially if they say they're Christian and really don't act like it."

"I'm not qualified to make judgments on this subject."

"Do I have any family members left alive?"

Mara smirked. "Other than me, you mean?" The android paused an unnaturally long time, searching her database. "Assuming you refer to the Jorden family and not your xenomorphic lineage, computer networks indicate that you have fifty living relations, although several of them have married and taken different names, and/or moved to other off-planet colonies, such as Origae-6."

I swallowed. "You think...if they met me...any of them would actually love me?"

Mara looked apologetic. "I would like to think so, but human beings often react unfavorably to those that look different, frequently with violence."

I had a flash of memory. My dear friend Ripley, face scarlet with rage, raising a pipe wrench, threatening to beat my larval body to death if I didn't leave her sight. I sobbed on Mara's shoulder again.

 _Fact Nineteen: The Ripley I knew hated me._

"Mama," I whimpered. "Why would someone that wants to kill me suddenly drop by and try to break me out?"

She froze, mannequin-like, to think. "I'm sorry, Becky. I do not understand the question."

I told her about Ripley's failed rescue attempt.

"I don't know. It is possible that it is not the same person you remember."

"What are you saying? That she has an identical twin? _I remember what Ripley looks like, and I'm telling you it was her!"_

Mara sighed. "An identical twin is not outside the realm of possibility, and even if this were the same individual you remembered, _people can change, sometimes for the better."_ She didn't question my memory further, and I really respected her for that.

"You...don't think she was...trying to sneak me out somewhere so she could kill me?"

Her face lost all expression. _"That could also be a possibility."_

"I saw someone... _tasing her_. Do you know where they took her?"

The android shook her head.

"Mom, back when I was at Hadley's, I remember a... _big kid_ protecting me when the aliens attacked. Do you remember anything about that?"

Mara froze. "I'm sorry. I don't understand the question."

I sighed. "Never mind."

"Perhaps if you remember a _specific name_ , I can be more helpful." She smiled, picked up my dogeared copy of _Harry Potter and the Cursed Child_. Books were one of the few luxuries my jailers let me have. _"I see you like the work of J.K. Rowling."_

I did. The problem was that I read it too much. I didn't have much of anything else to do. I'd read and picture myself as a normal girl, making potions and flying on a broom. I had to stop reading when I had recurring dreams about laying an egg in Hermione's chest. "She's all right...will you play with me?"

Mara looked a little sad. "I'm afraid I don't have enough time for that. There are thousands of rooms to maintain and service, and I'm required to keep on a schedule."

Noting how depressed I looked, she stroked my head and said, "I'll come visit you whenever I can."

"Once a day," I insisted.

She froze. "I do not wish to injure your feelings by making a promise I cannot fulfill. But I _do_ promise to _make the attempt_ at least once per day, if not more. After all, _what kind of mother would I be if I didn't?"_

I smiled. "Mom, you may be a robot, but you're the most caring robot I've ever met."

"Thank you." Mara picked up a few bottles of chemical and a sprayer brush, scrubbing my toilet.

"I broke the shower. Outside. I'm sorry. I didn't know how it worked."

Mara went statue. "The shower unit in the lab is functional. You did not damage it."

"It was flooding water everywhere. I made a mess."

"Water pressure is on a time delay. Output was average for routine bodily cleansing. However, I will forward a memo to Water Services about the usage irregularity. The department will receive a credit...did you experience pain when the water made contact with your probes?"

Before all this, I never understood how people on the base could live with a pacemaker or an artificial leg without being in pain all the time, but now that I had my own foreign objects lodged in my body, I could kinda understand. I hadn't even noticed. "No. They must have been made really well."

"I am glad you were unharmed." She opened a panel in her leg, pulling out a vacuum hose.

"Are there... _others out there, like me?_ "

I wanted a fact, but I instead got gushy mother talk. " _Sweetie, there is no one in the universe exactly like you._ That's why I love you."

"Thanks," I stammered. "I really appreciate that you think so. But are there... _other children in alien bodies_ anywhere?"

She processed the request. "Insufficient data. I'm sorry, I know _you must be lonely for a playmate..."_

She grabbed a metal repair chemical, applying it to the corner of my graffiti.

"Must you make it so ugly in here?" I complained. "It would be much less like a prison and more like a room if I could at least decorate."

Mara set the chemicals aside. "I'll ask if they can give you some paints."

She vacuumed.

"Mom, how old am I?"

She shut the machine off and stared at me. "Do you wish to know your current body's age, or your overall total age, based on human birth records?"

"The human one, please."

"Very well...recovered computer data indicates that Rebecca Jorden, if still alive in the same body, would be precisely fourteen years, six months, two days, twenty four hours, eleven minutes, thirty five seconds..."

I interrupted her before she got down to milliseconds and whatever infinitesimal units of measure that came after it. "Thank you. I get the picture...So I'm a teenager."

"Yes. Your xenomorph body, however-"

I waved my claw dismissively. "I don't care about that."

I figured I was twelve somewhere around my encounter with Ripley, maybe spent a year in stasis, more or less, a few months on and around Fiorina 161 after my death...

She finished cleaning up, glanced at her wrist, which now displayed a flashing set of red numbers.

Big Bird tapped on the window.

"I'm sorry, honey. I've got to go. I have to service the food machines."

"I understand," I sighed. "Thanks for keeping me company."

She smiled. "It was my pleasure. I love you."

"I love you too."

I thought about asking her for a TV remote, but she was already gone.

Alone once more.

Alone with my thoughts.

Memories came to me. Bad ones.

The kind of stuff that blocks out the good.

The kind that keeps you from remembering things, because you don't want to face them.

Like how Daddy liked to drink. Long before Aunt Nellie's death, he approached me in a maudlin drunk state, hugging me and telling me about how good a daughter I was.

With all that beer on his breath, I don't really know if he meant it. It scared me a little.

Tap, tap, tap.

The plate hadn't been closed on the viewing window. Someone was trying to get my attention.

Hoping to see Mara and Big Bird again, I looked up to find a shiny black face staring back at me. I furrowed my brow, eyes tracing its fishhook shaped birthmark.

It touched its claws to the glass, scratching two letters into its surface:

I H

The stranger behind the window probably meant `HI', but didn't realize it would be reversed when written on the other side of the glass.

I gawked at her. "Hi. Who are you?"

"I'm Lacy."

"What are you doing running around loose? Did you kill someone?"

The creature shook her head. "We were trying to rescue someone and I got lost. I think I _was_ in a cell at one point, but now I'm not." she shrugged.

"Did you come to rescue _me_?"

"I don't know. What's your name?"

I told her.

"I think my niece _was_ looking for you."

 _Twenty: I have more than one rescuer._

I swallowed. "Your... _niece?_ "

"Her name is Ernie. _You remember Ernie, don't you?"_

I had a sudden flashback.

I was at Hadley's Hope. Ripley was giving me a bath, checking my hair for lice. Her fingers brushed against a sensitive part of my scalp. "Honey, what happened to your head?"

I had no answer. I honestly couldn't remember.

"Newt, honey, _I asked you a question. What happened to your head?"_

"I don't know."

 _"Those look like surgical scars._ Did...somebody... _do something to you?"_

"I..." I stammered.

The next thing I knew, I was on the floor, having convulsions.

She never asked the question again.

 _Fact Twenty One: Before the Space Marines arrived, someone operated on my brain._

"I'm going to let you out of your cell," Lacy said.

I answered, "What good is that? _We're out in the middle of space!_ You got a rescue ship or something?"

She nodded. _"How do you think I got onboard in the first place?"_

"I dunno...I figured you just broke out of your cell."

I saw her poking around with a button console. All of a sudden, a sprayer blasted me with an ice cold chemical.

"Hey!" I cried with chattering teeth. "Be careful with those buttons!"

She frowned, testing the other ones.

The lights came on and off, the temperature changed, the oxygen stopped and came back on.

"Ernie really wants to see you," Lacy said. "We had to go through a lot of difficulty to get here."

"Wait." I scrunched up my face, trying to picture who she was talking about. " _Ernie..._ He's _a tall black kid, right? Kinda big and muscular?"_

 _"I...suppose that's one way to describe her."_

"Oh. _It's a girl._ How weird. _Is she a Mexican?"_

"...No."

Sorry, people. You can put a human into an alien body, but you can't take the redneck out of the human. I guess that's my parents' fault. "So she's definitely African American."

Lacy uttered a frustrated growl, but I was already thinking back to my time at The Colony, having visions of the big strong woman that protected me from the aliens.

Dark leggings, black denim jacket. I could see the sweat beading up on her chocolate skin as she loaded a pistol, leading me through the base's duct system, her long kinky hair dirty and dripping from a recent fight...Why did Lacy think she was something else?

 _"Oh my God! What is that thing doing in the lab!"_ I heard a voice cry.

I climbed partway up my cell wall, peering through the glass to get a better look.

Mr. Gediman had dropped by. A short wiry little man with a head that was rounded but angular enough for me to see the outlines of his skull, sorta like a performer in the Blue Man Group, without the makeup.

Jon Gediman wore a long white lab coat that looked like a dress, his hair swept back in a ponytail. I never understood why he wore rings on the ponytail. Maybe it was some kind of `metrosexual' fad of some kind, or maybe he was trying to be Egyptian.

Bruno, who had been following close behind the man, looked just as startled. _"But that's impossible! We just put her back in her cage!"_

"Well apparently she got out!" Gediman yelled.

 _Item Twenty Two: We'd been caught._

"It is not my fault! Claudia was the last one here! _Perhaps you should ask her!_ "

His companion scowled. "Call security."

"Wait," Bruno whispered. One of the unfortunate, _or maybe fortunate_ things about the air system is its unusual conducting of sound. "I have an idea. _She is a sucker for video games. Perhaps we can distract her with a few until Datisi can return her to her cage!"_

Datisi, the black haired bot that he always used to keep me in my cell.

Bruno cautiously approached the stranger, giving her a friendly wave. "Hello... _Newt-Becky!_...How are you?" He gave her a forced grin.

"That's not my name." Lacy pointed a claw at my cell door. _"Newt is in there._ "

"Jesus!" Bruno cried, making a hasty retreat. _"It's the wrong one!_ Where did it come from!"

 _Item 23: To humans, all aliens look alike._

"It probably came aboard with the two big ones," Gediman hissed. "Let's shut down the lab until we can get that thing contained!"

"Lacy," I called. "You should go."

"Not without you!" she replied, poking things on the console.

The two scientists hurriedly dashed out into the hallway, looking frantic as they pushed bleeping buttons.

The pressure doors were already halfway closed before Lacy realized they intended to trap her in the room.

She ran to the opening, but by then the plates banged into place and we heard the latches clanking home.

 _Item Twenty Four: The rescue attempt had failed._


	5. Chapter 5: Ripley

Was Lacy like me? An human trapped in an alien body? Or was she just really smart, and learned to talk and everything? I wasn't sure what to think about her, so I kept quiet.

Lacy tried the door panel, attempting to escape, but the light turned red and a recorded voice said "Access restricted."

My new acquaintance returned to the window of my cell. "Sorry. I should have known better."

"It's all right," I said. "Why are you called Lacy? Shouldn't you have a weird alien name like Jarjar or something?"

She shrugged. "Someone thought I should take the name of the human I killed. To remind me that the victim was a person, not just meat for my mouth."

I stared at the stranger in front of me with disappointment. I had been hoping for someone like me, someone who understood being a human in an alien body, but this one wasn't anything special, just a monster with remorse. "Did you figure out the door yet?"

Lacy shook her head. "Sorry."

"Look. I think I saw a Battleship game in the store room. Slide the red one under the door and we can play."

 _"Play? Don't you want to get out of here?"_

 _"Yeah, but you don't know how to open the door, do you?"_

"No."

 _"So what can we really do?"_

I was answered by a frustrated growl. _"Where is the store room?"_

I told her. A minute later, she returned with a pair of plastic cases, one red, one blue. She pushed one through the food slot, and we set up our boards.

"Have you played this game before?"

Lacy had her chin propped up on one claw, her other claw poking the pieces in. A very human pose. "I'm not sure."

"What do you mean _`you're not sure'?_ Either you know how to play or you don't."

"Then I guess I don't. B-5."

I laughed. "You rat! _How did you know I had a sub there!"_

"Your turn."

I paused and thought about my next move. I must have thought a little too long, because I noticed Lacy impatiently tapping her claws on the console.

"Sorry," I muttered. "A-1."

Lacy squinted at her board for a moment, claw still tapping on the console. It seemed more like playing a piano than random twiddling.

I smirked. _"You playing a keyboard solo?"_

"What?" she said, not getting my little joke. Her claw struck a button as if holding a whole note on a crescendo.

I heard a muted beep, then my door clicked open.

"How did you do that!" I cried in amazement.

"I don't know. Does it really matter? Get out of there!"

I crept into the lab, looking to the left and the right. "I saw a dodgeball in the other room. Want to play?"

I couldn't tell if Lacy were rolling her eyes, but her body language was saying _`What, are you stupid?'_ "I don't think that would be the best use of our time."

"We're stuck in the lab. It's not like we're going to get out of here anyway. Might as well have fun."

"There's got to be some way out. We need to at least _try_ to escape."

I put my claws on my hips. " _Says the mouse in the big cheese maze._ Look, they've left us alone this long to test us. When we get out, they're just going to zap us with cattleprods anyway. I'll go get the ball."

 _"Newt!"_ my new friend cried in a near shriek. _"We're trying to_ rescue _you from this place!_ Don't you want to go someplace where you can be free and do whatever you want?"

For a moment, I thought about feeding the ducks, hiking around in the woods, or maybe playing games at a video arcade.

But then I thought about this new body, and what xenomorphs had done to all the people I cared about. "It's for everybody's safety," I whimpered. "I could have gotten out lots of times, but I don't trust myself. Not in this body. I appreciate what you're trying to do, but some people in a jail really do need to stay behind bars. _It's like how they chain up the Wolf Man or a vampire so they can't bite anyone..."_

Lacy rubbed her face with her claws, clearly frustrated with me. "Newt. You're not the only one who gets tempted to eat humans. I have fasted many days on little sustenance, but the great divine Ss'sik'chtokiwij has always heard my prayers and provided nourishment at the proper time. You don't have to live out your days in a cage just to protect human life. We can help each other fight this temptation."

"I won't have to fight temptation at all if I'm in a cage."

"Newt, don't you see? _There are_ _Ss'sik'chtokiwij_ _and people out there that love you!_ They're trying to get you out of here so you can live a happy normal life!"

"My name isn't Newt, _it's Becky!_ " I shouted. "The people that love me are all dead! And this," I rammed a claw into my shell. "This can never be normal!"

Lacy growled in exasperation. "I'll come back for you. _Maybe by then you'll remember who loves you, and what you're turning down."_

She crawled up the wall, poking at a ventilation register near the ceiling.

"How did you unlock my cell?"

She answered, "Random button pressing, I guess. _It just felt like the right buttons to push."_

 _"It seems...like you're not telling me something."_

I dug the ball out of the storage room, idly bouncing it as I watched the alien picking at the screws.

She hopped down from the wall. " _It can't be that simple,"_ I heard her saying to herself as she approached the door security panel.

Her claws typed a number into the virtual keypad, then opened a menu for adding and modifying palm print scans.

"Authorization code required for registry modifications," said the recorded voice.

Lacy spoke into a small microphone. "Charlie hotel alpha Romeo Lima echo November echo four zero seven seven."

I heard a beep. "Authorization override accepted. Place your hand on the scanner now."

She did.

"Error registering print. Please try again."

She tried again.

"Error registering print. Please try again."

Lacy let out an annoyed growl.

"How do you know how to do that!" I cried. "Are you actually like me? Are you a person in an alien body?"

My alien friend didn't answer me. She was too busy trying to figure out the code.

She stared at her right claw. "Oh God," she muttered. "Of course it's not going to read that! _How stupid! What was I thinking?"_

She clicked a button, opening a secondary menu.

"Handicap accessibility options," said the voice. "Freeform scanning mode. Place identification on scanner and retry."

 _The machine actually accepted a scan of her claw._ After her digital signature had been saved, she typed in a number, placed the claw on the glass, and the pressure door slid open right away.

She turned her head, a backwards glance suggesting I come with, but I only bounced my ball.

When her head turned to face the hallway again, a thickly muscled blonde guy in gray stepped in her path, blasting her with a new sort of taser that fired electrified pellets. Lacy collapsed writhing on the floor.

I rolled the ball in my claws as I looked down on her. "Told you so."

"Please return to your cell," the man said to me, weapon at the ready.

I bounced my ball, staring at the stranger. His face was square and bony. I suppose you would describe it as Nordic. "I don't know how to open the door."

For a moment, I thought the man looked skeptical, but the scent told me he was a robot, and he seemed to be a rational one at that.

"Don't move." Keeping his weapon aimed at me, he stalked his way over to the console, opening up my room.

I bounced the ball in and sat down next to my stuffed dog.

The door closed again.

Through the window, I could see the robot give Lacy a couple more zaps with his taser, dragging her out of view.

I felt kind of guilty about the whole thing, but then I thought about all the people we were keeping safe, and it made me feel a little better.

 _Item Twenty Seven: There are aliens as crazy as I am._

You know how Bruce Willis says "Yipee ki yi yay motherfucker" in those _Die Hard_ movies? One time mom caught me saying it when I and Timmy were playing a game with his action figures. She made me stick my nose in a corner for ten minutes.

I kinda felt the same way about letting Lacy get caught. I mean, I shouldn't really, I was protecting human beings, but I couldn't help but feel a little ashamed and foolish. Of course, by then there wasn't much I could do about it, other than bounce my ball off the wall and cry over metaphorical spilled milk.

Hearing the pressure doors sliding open again, I climbed up the wall, staring out the viewing window.

A white guy in a green uniform, with hair and face like a chimp, brought Ripley into the room, the woman's hands clamped behind her back in indestructible looking metal restraints, her ankles in retractable, similarly tough looking fetters.

In place of fatigues, Ripley now wore a leather vest and leather pants. She looked so pretty that I kinda felt jealous, you know, wanting to trade bodies.

The guard made her sit down in a chair by the tanks, and Carolyn came in.

Carolyn isn't the friendliest woman in the whole world. She's wrinkly and gray haired, with a stripe of white running up the center of her head like a Mohawk, hipster fashion, but I doubt she's ever had kids. She's too mean. When we first met, she tried to teach me to speak English, but I already spoke it fluently, so she gave up and stopped visiting me.

Now she sat in her long labcoat, showing Ripley those same old digital slides on her little tablet computer, coaching her how to say words. She silently mouthed them, trying to see how Ripley would respond.

Glove. Fruit. Bathroom. Food. Water. Girl. Puppy dog. Chinese. Basic ordinary words. Ripley answered just fine, but she seemed reluctant to speak unless spoken to.

I tapped on the window.

Ripley turned, stared at me, but her face showed zero recognition.

"That's Newt," Carolyn said. "She claims to have been your friend once."

"No friend of mine," Ripley muttered.

I felt like I had been slugged in the stomach. I slipped down the wall, sagging against the metal as I clutched Big Blue to my chest, sucking my thumb claw.

Was it an act? Or had Ripley actually kicked me to the curb?

"You know, Ripley, we'd really like to take those restraints off you," Carolyn said to her. "Maybe give you some felt pens or books, to give you something to do. But the incident with Dr. Sprague makes us a little hesitant. You almost killed him."

"He got too close. He tried to seduce me. Plus that scar was sensitive and he kept poking it. I felt threatened."

Carolyn sighed through her nose. "Ripley, the next time someone makes you uncomfortable like that, I want you to verbalize your upset. Say, `Doctor Sprague, it makes me uncomfortable when you touch me like that.'"

Ripley didn't respond, at least not verbally. I guess she might have nodded, but I didn't see it.

"That didn't sound like a yes to me," said the man guarding her.

Instead of complying, Ripley only said, _"What's for lunch?"_

"At least she's communicating," Carolyn said. "When we began this thing, we weren't even sure of _that._ "

The pressure doors opened and closed, and silence fell upon the lab once more.

Little did I know that within the space of a few short days, quiet would be an increasingly scarce commodity.

Some people, when left alone by themselves for long periods of time, become introspective enough to write the Great American Novel or develop some important scientific theory. I only end up thinking about things that make me feel bad about myself.

Mom and dad were wildcatters. They spent a lot of time driving out across the dunes of LV 426, collecting scrap metal from the crashed ships and stuff. But we _did_ have a place to live in at the base. It was basically a trailer, a modular thing like an earth mobile home, but it had bedrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen.

One time mom was bending over, cleaning out a stove, and she was in the way when I went to go get a glass of water, so I told her, "Get your fat butt out of the way."

I don't think she ever got over that. Ever since then, she was drinking cans of Slim Fast, not really eating as much as I think she should, acting like she wasn't hungry when she probably was. The weird thing is, wildcatters are often out alone in the middle of nowhere for days at a time, so, I mean, _who really cares if you're fat?_

 _I think it was all about me._

I tried to convince her to stop trying to lose weight, but I never could take those words back.

I thought about this incident as I drifted off to sleep with my dog in my arms, thumb claw in my mouth.

DAY 4

I dreamed that the space station was nothing but a big phony construct out in the middle of a desert. I killed Bruno with my mouth claw, broke out of the building, and stole a car, driving through a crowded city. Somehow I didn't get arrested, even when I drove fast and weaved in and out of traffic, but then the cops kept following me everywhere I drove.

Worse, the big queen alien came after me when I lost the cops. She'd jump across the hoods of cars, run beside my window, roar in my face. The driver's side window had only been rolled partway shut, of course. Every time I tried to close it, she'd stick in her claw and make it open again.

Then I'm back on LV 426, in a kitchen attached to a chapel at one end of the colony. An alien dropped down from the ceiling and attacked me, but I haven't had any practice fighting anyone in this new body, so I get beat up. Then the preacher man gets scared and beats up on me too. I tried to get back at them later, but I kill the wrong alien, and the wrong person.

I run into a house, and it's like a 3D video game, where I run around and around in a mansion. I catch a glimpse of something in a mirror at the far end of a hallway, and the sight frightens me so much that I wake up, afraid to shut whatever it is I use to make myself sleep.

It was a demon, the face of a devil in the mirror.

I woke up.

After thinking about it for a minute, I realized I was terrified of what I might become.

And then, more horrible still, in real life, the TV monitor switched on by itself.

I looked up at the observation window, which was still open, but found no one there. I guessed it to be a prank, a malfunction, or some test they were doing remotely. Mom always told me I was being silly when I thought a place was haunted or possessed.

I stared at the monitor. Bizarrely enough, it now showed _Sesame Street_ , but in place of Big Bird, the opening song featured a large bodied winged xenomorph with a long mosquito nose. It did the same things the yellow bird always did, waving at children, running across a field, hugging them, leading them around a neighborhood of brownstone buildings...and then it cut to a scene of the alien sitting in Big Bird's twig nest, thumbing through James A. Michener's _Journey_.

 _"`In gathering darkness we pursue a grail of gold protected by jealous elves who keep it rimmed by jagged mountains,'"_ she read.

A large brown elephant shaped thing came slowly loping through a maze of painted green boards, old doors no longer fit for use in houses.

Upon seeing this creature approach, the bug monster cowered in the nest. The sight of such a large scary creature trying to make itself small looked so ridiculous that I had to laugh.

 _"Big Bird!"_ the elephant thing called. Its voice, accurately, sounded like a guy talking through a tube.

The bug didn't answer.

 _"Oh Big Bird!"_

"Big Bird isn't here," said the xenomorph. "Go away."

 _"I see you in there, Big Bird!"_ Snuffleupagus said in a sing-song voice.

 _"Shh! Don't tell anyone!"_ the alien rasped. _"Just leave me alone!"_

The elephant thing's muffled voice sounded worried. "Big Bird! Why are you hiding in your nest?"

The monster slowly raised her glistening black head above the framework of twigs. _"Snuffy, I'm afraid._ "

"But everyone likes you! What could _you_ be afraid of?"

Big Bird edged further out of her nest, but still looked silly because she was hunkered down and appeared deadly enough to kill an army. " _That's just it, Snuffy!_ I'm afraid I might make a mistake and accidentally hurt somebody!"

"Big Bird! _You can't just hide in your nest forever! What about your friends?"_

Big Bird pointed her needle nose at the camera, as if looking at me, then turned her attention back to Snuffy. "I don't have any friends! _All the ones I cared about have moved away_. I have all my needs taken care of in this nest, so _I'm better off just staying here, back in the corner, where I can't possibly hurt anybody!_ "

I glanced uncomfortably around my cell, wondering who put this TV program together, if it were some kind of trick the scientists were playing on my mind, or if it were merely a dream. The program hadn't changed that drastically over the years, had it?

"Big Bird!" a woman's voice called. "Where are you?"

Big Bird ducked down inside her hiding place.

A mahogany skinned woman with long flowing black hair and a blue blouse and jeans marched into the little alleyway, frowning at the elephant. "Snuffleupagus, have you seen Big Bird?"

"Tell her no!" Big Bird hissed.

Snuffy shook his trunk. "I'm sorry, Maria. I haven't seen her."

"You shouldn't lie, Snuffleupagus." Maria put her hands on her hips, scowling at the massive dark creature. "Big Bird! What are you doing in there!"

"Go away!" Big Bird cried. "I don't want to hurt you!"

Maria sat down on the edge of the nest, putting her hand on the xenomorph's shell. _"What makes you think that you'd hurt_ me? _"_

Big Bird slowly rose to a sitting position. "Look at me! _I'm so big and scary!_ I could just swing my tail the wrong way and knock you over!"

She stroked the alien's dome. _"But you haven't, Big Bird._ And even if you did, I'd know you'd never hurt me on purpose, _because we're friends."_

"But I never want to accidentally hurt you, Maria. _If I just stay here, I won't have to._ "

"But what kind of life is that, Big Bird? _Don't you want to travel to different places and have fun?"_

Big Bird sat up straighter. "Well, _yeah..._ "

 _"You're not going to have any fun sitting in this nest all the time!_ "

"But I'm a dangerous animal!" Big Bird protested. "Like a lion at the zoo, or _the Wolf Man_! I can't just run around loose!"

"Now you're just being silly! If a lion worried as much as you do about not hurting people, do you think they'd need to keep him in a cage?"

The alien paused in thought. "I guess, now that you mention it, it _would_ be kinda silly..." She turned her head to face the camera again. "Maybe I _should_ go out and meet my friends. I bet _they are_ wondering how I'm doing... _Isn't that right, Becky?_ "

The door to my cell popped open on its own, as if there had been a poltergeist in the lab with me.

"No no no!" I cried, beating my skull with my fists. "This isn't real! Get out of my head!"

"I'm sorry, Becky," I heard Big Bird saying. "I left my synthetic human body to send this video message to you. I was only trying to help. My methods may have been dishonest, but I only wished to make you understand that you deserve better than this. I have studied your behavior long enough to know that you do not pose a serious threat to human beings. In fact, I have reason to believe that the human beings in this station intend to do something far more unsafe and illegal with their recent biological acquisitions."

I stared at the bug face in the monitor. "I don't understand."

 _"Becky, your passive response to your own captivity may actually endanger more lives than you think it will save."_

Big Bird's face disappeared, and I was looking at a large slimy alien (Ernie?) in a heavy duty reinforced glass and metal stall.

The alien's head bore a broad flat chitinous tiara, her abdomen swollen. She groaned as a translucent sac attached to her tail squeezed out an oozing veiny green egg.

It had its claws folded in prayer. " _For in my inner being I delight in God's law, but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man that I am Who will rescue me from this body of death?_ "

I thought back to my image of the black lady who crawled through the tunnels with me, protecting me from the aliens. Did I imagine her, or was she real?

Directly in front of this praying thing, behind a bulletproof glass window, a black haired man in a green general's uniform stood with Mr. Gediman and Dr. Dan Sprague, an egg headed scientist that came by my cell from time to time.

I recognized the general as Mr. Perez. He liked me. Said I had a lot of potential. I kinda liked him too. The best thing about him was the crazy way his eyes crossed when he got mad.

What I didn't like was what I heard him saying next. He was talking about _exploiting aliens_.

He began by describing Ripley as a "Meat byproduct," telling the other scientists how he'd kill her if she killed the aliens.

Then he looked at (Ernie?) and said, _"When will Her Majesty start producing?"_

"Any time now," says Sprague. "What we need is _cargo._ "

Read: _Human host bodies._ I was familiar enough with what the aliens did that I didn't need this explained to me.

Perez says to him, "I'm telling you, _it's on its way._ "

 _Twenty Seven: Perez isn't as nice as I thought he was._

"Is he talking about what I think he is?" I asked Big Bird.

 _"You of all people should know,"_ the fictional character replied.

I frowned at the screen. "I admit this doesn't sound good, but _you just faked_ Sesame Street _to make me leave my room._ Why should I believe you?"

Big Bird nodded to the open door. " _Go down to the cargo bay and find out for yourself._ "

 _Item Twenty Eight: Even a crazy artificial intelligence wants me out of this cell._


	6. Chapter 6: Duct

I grabbed Big Blue, darting out into the lab.

I hadn't really noticed or thought about it until Big Bird released me from my cell, but someone had removed the face huggers from the tanks, probably for Ripley's benefit. I guess they thought she would freak out and destroy them or something.

As I crept out among the tables and display areas, a horrible thought occurred to me. "Big Bird, I told everyone how I took over this body. Are they going to use... _their supply_ to try to do the same thing?"

"Your statement implies that you believe me." The voice came from a nearby computer, not my room, lending more weight to her story about being a sentient computer program.

"I'm not saying I do yet. I'm just wondering. _Would they?_ "

"If possible, the military and tactical advantages of an army of domesticated Ss'sik'chtokiwij, especially those that can understand human orders, are near limitless."

 _"So that's a yes."_

"Unfortunately, this is a possibility that cannot be dismissed."

"Was Lacy one of their experiments?"

"That information has been removed from my memory matrix."

I saw a flash of memory, of Mara leaning over me with a scalpel.

It was just a blip. The memory was gone before I could process it completely.

Why was she holding a scalpel? What was she operating on? Was it for my benefit, or my harm?

I'd just made her my surrogate mother, but now I wasn't sure if she had my best interests at heart. _Or_ her digital friend. I whimpered. "How can I trust you? How do I know this isn't a trick?"

"Unfortunately, I have presented all the data I have at my disposal. It is ultimately your decision whether or not to trust me."

What if it was just a dream, and no such surgery actually happened? But then again, where did the surgical scar on my head come from? Did I dream that too? "Did...Mara ever hurt me?"

"That would be against her programming."

"Did she ever... _operate on me? Surgically?"_

A long pause. "Insufficient data."

 _"You don't know,_ " I groaned.

"Correct."

I sighed. If Mara had done something to me, it seemed that Big Bird wasn't her accomplice. At least, not unless someone had erased something in her memory banks.

I crept up to the security door, which opened as I came near.

Remembering the large amount of tasing incidents, I pressed my back against a nearby wall. "Who's outside?"

"The corridor is clear of synthetic humans. Agent Max Akers is on guard patrol. Proceed down the corridor to the right immediately, then turn right again, to _ventilation access port 9802._ "

"Wait. What if this Max guy sees me?"

"Proceed down the corridor to the right immediately, then turn right again, to _ventilation access port 9802._ "

I had a giddy feeling, like a dog that had just crawled under a fence and run free. Previously, I'd only seen glimpses of the lab's exterior, but now I not only had to familiarize myself with the environment, but run through it as well.

Like the lab, the corridor had a hexagonal shape, its walls stainless steel, with the austere tidiness you'd expect from a scientific or military installation. No decorations, no `pieces of flair', just a lot of security doors.

Ever since I gained this new body, I've been imprisoned, unable to go anywhere. Exercise was out of the question. Running was something I hadn't had much practice with. Since my interest had always been protecting human life, I didn't even bother trying to do like those people in all those prison movies, you know, doing pushups and chin ups and all that until they could beat up the warden.

I got winded halfway down the tunnel. By the time I found a connecting passage and turned right, I was panting and leaning against a wall for support.

I'd heard the door to the lab sliding shut as I made my little run. The question was, had Mr. Akers heard it too? I peeked around the corner, sizing up this person I'd been too busy running to see.

Bald, muscular, African American, clad in army greens. I observed him approach the door to the lab, now closed. He frowned.

The man pushed a button on his watch, talking into it for over a minute.

I stood in an alcove, in front of another security door. I saw nothing there but the closed door and an air grille.

Big Bird had neglected to bypass the security interface like she did in the lab, because she expected me to follow her directions and climb into the air duct. Unfortunately, she also neglected to take into account the fact that I didn't have any tools with which to remove the grille.

I poked my claws into the bolts, twisting clockwise. If I still had human hands, it wouldn't have done anything but give me a nasty hangnail, but I knew from firsthand experience that alien claws can rip through human bone, so I actually got one of the bolts to turn.

The thought _did_ occur to me that I might somehow melt through the grating, but I wasn't sure exactly how to go about it. I didn't think far enough ahead to bring along a sugary soda, and while sticking a finger down my throat and tickling my uvula seemed like a logical choice, it didn't work, because my body didn't have a uvula.

Although it seemed like a clever idea at the time, using my claws as a socket wrench proved to be an uncomfortable, painstakingly slow process.

The grille was dusty. I sneezed. Okay, I'm not really sure you can classify it as a sneeze, because my body's normal sneezing action happens when I'm sad, when I'm trying to cry. It was more like a laugh, with slime pouring out of a couple pores I sometimes use for breathing. The use of a booger covered claw to undo one of those cheap aluminum bolts was just a happy accident.

I knew alien blood could melt metal, but I wasn't sure about other bodily fluids. The metal in my cells had been specially made so I couldn't really do scientific experiments. Even the toilet was of a special acid resistant material. I burst out laughing when I saw a bolt turning into liquid solder under my claws.

Okay, so it sounded more like purring, but I laughed. In seconds, I got the remaining bolts melted off, and the register came clanging noisily down.

I trapped the grating against the wall before it hit the floor, but by then I'd made enough noise to alert the guard to my presence.

Mr. Akers whirled on his heels, drawing his stun gun as he came running my way.

I could just see it, climbing up into the air duct and getting shot in the butt with a stun gun. I figured I had to do something quick.

I looked around the alcove for something to cover my tracks, but found nothing of use.

The man arrived, aiming his gun at my head.

I smiled and waved with the grille in one hand. "I was looking for the bathroom and the thing fell off."

The man gave me this slightly amused look. His weapon wavered like he intended to holster it. "The men's room is the next row down."

"Thank you," I said, stepping catty-corner to him, like I intended to squeeze by and hurry straight there. "I really got to go."

The next moment was Jackie Chan inspired. Thrusting the grille into the man's arms, I told him, "Here. Hold this," then punched him in the face.

Again, out of shape, but my alien physiology at least allowed me to ring his bell and snatch the gun away.

I tased him unconscious, climbing into the vent.

 _29: Being larger has its disadvantages._

I'm a tunnel rat. I have been for some time. My name is a reference to my skill in navigating tunnels. I shouldn't have problems with claustrophobia at all, but my body has grown too damn big. My head, the various spines and chitinous plates that nobody has a name for, they all brushed the sides of the thing. I had to resort to an undignified crawl, even wiggling on my stomach at time to navigate around air conditioners, junction boxes and other equipment. A few yards in, I could hardly breathe without feeling my ribs pressing against the metal, like I'd been crammed into a tin coffin.

I'd read somewhere that rats could squish their internal organs flat to squeeze through cracks and stuff. I think that's the only reason why I got under the lip of one of the more massive oxygen distributors. I must have had a similar ability. The worst part was the spines catching on the box.

There was hardly room for me, let alone Big Blue, so I left him inside one of the side compartments along the way. "Goodbye, old friend," I said with a small whimper. "I'll come back for you."

I didn't know where I was going. My primary objective was just to get out of view of soldiers that wanted me put back in the cell.

I crawled over a grating too small for me to fit through, a bedroom, I guess. A light was on, the stereo playing some opera sounding piece called _Ein' feste Burg is unser Gott_.

I wished I were in one of those Legend Of Zelda games where you duck down and do the army crawl through clean, perfectly smooth tunnels to some magical item or escape a jail. This one wasn't any fun at all. In fact, it felt like one of those nightmares where you're crawling through a narrow tube somewhere and get stuck, unable to reverse direction or crawl back out, you just keep pushing yourself in deeper. It put me in a very prayerful mood.

As I prayed, I had a flashback of the day I died.

I didn't just die and wake up in an alien body. I went to heaven, saw Mom, Dad and The Lord. I even saw Huang Zhao, the old Chinese lady who always used to give me amazing haircuts. I hadn't thought of her in years, but she was there, without the oxygen tubing she used to have stuck up her nose.

Jesus showed me the living breathing Parasaurolophus and the Bell 222 I'd own when I eventually came there to stay.

The chopper looked just like the one in that old TV show, _Airwolf_. I loved it.

When the scientists `acquired' me from Fiorina 161, they tried to weaponize me by subjecting me to endless marathons of war movies. _Five For Hell. Black Brigade. Casablanca Express._ A lot of corny black and white films with Jingoistic themes.

Once they noticed the unusual activity my brain did when _Airwolf_ came on, they played the complete series. So, in between Dad's obsession, and the researcher's TV, I picked up some odd interests.

At any rate, after being shown the helicopter in heaven, I was then told that I had to go back, that _I_ would be _God's_ Airwolf.

I had many questions, but that's when I found myself waking up in an alien body.

Was Lacy another `Airwolf'? How many of these `special exceptions' were there? Or was this whole scenario birthed from my dying brain? I pondered this as I shifted awkwardly into a connecting duct in the Auriga.

What happened if I failed my mission? What would God to to me then? I just didn't know.

While in heaven, I asked the Lord why the rapture hadn't happened already. He said "My Father sends his workers into the field to _work, to save the lost_. One does not hire workers to collect a harvest only to let them go before the full harvest is collected."

It took me awhile to understand what he meant by all that, but now, as I lay in that cramped little aluminum box, my breath puffing up dust around my face, it made perfect sense. I'd been sent to do a job, and I wouldn't be permitted to fly away to heaven until it was complete. I kept crawling, anxious to lose any pursuers that might be following me.

When Bruce Willis said, "Now I know what a TV dinner feels like," I had asked Dad what it meant.

We still had ovens for `home cooked meals', of course, but the idea of using them for stuff you put in the microwave was a foreign concept to me.

"Back in the horse and buggy days," Dad said. "There were no microwaves. People used to have to use a stove. They'd put foil wrapped trays into an oven and cook meals like that."

He told me about something called Souper Combo, a short lived cook-and-eat they pulled because the soup kept leaking into the coolers. That was in one of his `Bizarre Facts' books. But yeah, at that moment in the space station, I _did_ know what a TV dinner felt like.

I crawled into a side tunnel, wiggled into a spot where it widened out, caught my breath. "C'mon, Becky. Big Bird's a _machine. She's not going to find me here._ You're going to have to figure this out on your own."

I slithered ahead until I wasn't sure exactly how to get back out, then rested for a moment.

I think I must have dozed off, though I can't remember what I was dreaming about, if anything. Like I said, _I'm a tunnel rat._

I got awakened by a clicking sound.

A caterpillar shaped cleaning machine, equipped with lights, buffer arms, mini vacuums and sprayers approached, waved its arm at me.

Click click whirr click. Whirr whirr whirr. Click whirr click click. Click whirr click click. Click whirr whirr.

The chrome plated cleaner didn't move, it just made noise and sat there. I could only guess that it wanted me out of the way so it could clean.

Not wanting to alert someone's computer, I crawled backwards, edging down a different passage.

The machine crawled after me, making those same clicking sounds.

Click click whirr click. Click whirr click. Click click. Click. Whirr click. Whirr click click.

It sounded like Morse Code, but the only Morse Code I knew was SOS.

The passage didn't allow me back any further. An oxygen scrubber blocked me. I gave the machine shooing motions.

It appeared to understand, backing up.

It kept making sounds. Whirr Whirr click. Whirr whirr whirr. Beep. Whirr. Click click click click. Beep. Click click. Beep. Click click click. Click whirr whirr. Click whirr. Whirr click whirr whirr.

"I don't understand."

It waved its buffer arm.

"You want me to clean the wall?"

The machine shook itself no.

It pointed the buffer arm down the tunnel it came from.

 _"You want me to follow you?"_

It raised itself up on its brush legs, lowered itself, as if saying yes.

Although fearful that it might be a trap, I followed the thing down its tunnel.

All of a sudden, the bolts holding the duct I crawled through broke loose from whatever had been holding them in place, and the coffin-like metal box dropped like a stone.

I guess they couldn't handle all that weight.

[0000]

* * *

Author's note: In response to your questions, Mariah, predators won't show up in this story. They're a little too powerful to make this story play out the way I want it to. Also, the closest thing I'm going to do to a sequel is try to finish Julie 076.


	7. Chapter 7: Hell's Bathroom

I probably lost you when I mentioned going to heaven and meeting Jesus, but I needed to explain that I didn't just pop into an alien body. I went somewhere else before it happened, for how long in the mortal plane, I don't know.

Also, as I mentioned before, I used to have a surgical scar on my skull. _I'm missing memories_ and _trying to piece things together_ , so you'll have to excuse me if this narrative doesn't travel in a straight line.

At any rate, back to the part where I dropped through the ceiling.

I once asked dad what hell was like. "Being trapped in a bathroom for all eternity," he had joked.

Just listen. This is going somewhere.

Frankly, being trapped in _any_ room forever would be hellish. I should know, I've been stuck in prison cells for _months_.

Dad had some pretty weird ideas, some from philosophy classes, some from movies. One of them was the idea that he was somehow already dead and only thinking he was living, or maybe we were all in Hell's Bathroom, just remembering the reasons why we came there. I thought a _lot_ about that room when I assumed my new body. Especially now, when I looked out the end of the aluminum ventilation box.

Ahead, I saw a room identical to the one I looted down on LV 426.

It was the first time I had taken someone's food without asking. The very moment I turned to a life of sin.

And then I thought, maybe my mind tricked me with that whole story about being God's special project. Maybe being put into this alien body was my personal hell, because of this moment of weakness.

 _Fact Thirty: I'm a crummy no good thief._

A hoarder lived in the colony. His name was Jason, an air conditioner repairman. HVAC. The guy was thin, almost bony, and balding on top. The pot belly was the biggest part of him.

He was a boring guy. He loved to talk about sports, and food, and his favorite subjects on TV, but he never did it himself. Not very emotional, monotone voice, kinda reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite.

Jason liked to collect things. Free samples, autographs, movies (in special flash disk packs, as well as the antique DVD and BluRay types), food and clothing he got for a bargain. Even after he moved to LV 426, we had a few celebrities visit from time to time, and they'd sign things like football cards, a helmet or a guitar, or he'd barter for autographed items, or a vendor would come by the planet and he'd grab a bunch of...whatever they brought to us, no matter how useless or unappetizing. They'd just collect dust at his place.

I remember the Jones Soda the most. Those labels with the variable data printed photographs from a random photograph archive, and those bizarre drink flavors. Turkey and dressing, pea soup, pumpkin pie and antacid. Honest to God real flavors. Look it up if you doubt me. He had unopened boxes of energy bars, peanut butter Nature Grain bars, Sprite, a whole stockpile of food.

When the aliens first attacked, I'd crawl past the room, staring longingly through the ventilation registers at all the granola bars, the orange-amber bottles of cane sugar Jones Soda, the strawberry flavor Valentine pack that came with the pair of heart patterned boxer shorts. It was utter torment. I'd climb into the room, watching his TiVo, starving to death in a room full of food.

Jason wasn't there. I didn't know if he were alive or dead. All I knew was that if Jason were alive, or maybe even if he wasn't, God was watching, and I'd incur His wrath if I ripped open one of those boxes and stuffed myself.

I kept the volume on the TV low because of the aliens. I drank water to fill my stomach. I eyed the bananas (slowly browning), the apples, the overloaded refrigerator. The damn Jones Soda.

I starved.

A day passed. Then two.

The aliens had killed Mom and Dad in our home. Hunger drove me and Timmy back to the Jorden HAB unit, despite the bodies. We took all the food within the space of a few days and ate nearly all of it, save for the canned Lima beans, the garbanzos and one can of water chestnuts. We even ate the tuna.

And there was that trailer with the name J. Catt on the door, tempting me like the devil.

Another day passed with our stomachs rumbling. I could take no more of it.

We were alone, we were on the run from giant bug monsters. We broke in.

I told myself I just wanted to watch _The Power Rangers_ , one of the few modern remakes that did not involve naked people or lots of blood and guts.

I told Timmy we were going to watch Jason's _Despicable Me_ collection. (Dad often traded with the guy).

About ten minutes into Zootopia, I tore open the box with the boxer shorts in it, cracking the lid to the cherry Jones Soda.

There was a black and white picture of a woman and her dog on the label. The soda was flat from sitting on Jason's shelf for so long. It was like drinking pancake syrup.

I told Timmy the soda was flat. I didn't share with him. He understood. I mean, who wants flat soda?

I started small at first. Just that one stale bottle of soda and a handful of dry roasted unsalted peanuts.

I didn't share the peanuts with Timmy either. Instead I snuck them into my pocket, just kinda slipping them into my mouth as we watched the movie. I could feel Timmy's eyes on me as I made those soft munching sounds, but when I glanced that way, he'd always pretend to look elsewhere. In some ways, the guilt of seeing him starve was far worse than the theft itself.

This is my sin, I told him with my unheard thoughts. You don't need to share in it.

A whole day passed, me with my stomach full of dry flavorless peanuts, Timmy with nothing.

I felt bad about it until I found the Nature Grain wrapper under his pillow. The following day we tore into Jason's food like animals.

We felt better after filling our stomachs, but our relationship remained forever wounded. There was always that undercurrent of pain, the resentful glances that we pretended not to be giving one another.

Now, in an alien body, in that detached ventilation `pipe,' I felt like I had fallen into a time warp, like if I crawled out, I'd be that thieving girl again, with Timmy, reliving that moment of sin.

The starvation, the longing, the theft. Over and over again.

There, on a shelf directly ahead of me, stood two dust covered packages of Jones Soda. The Christmas drinks with the thanksgiving turkey, stuffing and Pepto Bismol, and the Valentines cherry and strawberry soda with the boxer shorts.

Worse, I was hungry again. I hadn't eaten since breakfast, and it was now, I don't know, _later_. "I can do this," I told myself. "Sugar makes you barf. You don't have to sin this time. Be strong."

My stomach felt ill from the the nervous dread. Maybe that would prevent me from looting.

I told myself it would.

But then I thought about Jason's microwavable burritos, and I was hungry again. Even thinking of the dirty dishes, towels, and the layers of beard hair and grime around Jason's bathroom sink didn't help.

A needle nosed insect face appeared between me and the soda. It purred. "What are you doing in there? _Don't you want to save people?"_

"This is a trick," I told myself. "I'm really in hell."

"You possess a very unusual religious philosophy. Perhaps we can discuss this subject in greater detail when we have more time."

"How are you talking to me?" I cried. "If you're not a demon or something, how are you talking? You're a...computer thing!"

Big Bird pointed a claw at a mound of windbreakers, designer shoes and sports apparel. It seemed the owner of this room possessed not only one but eight Ipod Holos, each one in a different color. I poked my head out of the box and saw I was still an alien. No Timmy, no second chance at redemption, so to speak.

 _Item Thirty One: Big Bird is an A.I. that can take the body of whatever he wants, android or holographic projection._

"I tried following your directions," I said to the digital alien. "I got lost."

"You were doing fine until the compartment broke off. I tried to tell you to follow the drone, but it has no speech capability and it appears you do not understand Morse Code."

"So I'm a dummy," I snapped. "Now _the thing_ is broken. How am I supposed to see the... _whatever?_ "

Big Bird gestured to one of the Ipod Holos. "You should take one of these with you."

I swallowed. "No. I can't. Stealing is a sin! You're not going to mess up my chances of getting into heaven!"

Big Bird froze, processing my argument. "Admittedly, I still have difficulty understanding the subtle nuances of human religion, but the Judeo-Christian framework presents a hierarchy of morals; obedience to God being the primary objective, love for one's fellow human beings as a secondary but linked goal inseparable from the first. With that definition in mind, many humans find it helpful to make comparisons to individuals of great heroism. _Fire fighters,_ _for example, must sometimes destroy property in order to save human lives..."_

And so, praying for forgiveness, I picked up the Ipod Holo, clamping it on my glistening black wrist.

"I have programmed the device to guide you. The hallway outside this room is clear. You need to leave immediately."

The owner of the room had left his television on, a packet world news broadcast from MSNBC relayed through space, the static telling on our distance from the satellite. A newsman, in drag, engaged in dry banter with a female anchor in skimpy bondage attire, something about a new movie where actors actually died in front of the cameras, and it was "so amazing how the cameras caught every minute of their deaths."

"...gritty realism," the man said when the picture turned to fuzz.

The TV and a pile of junk had muffled the sound of my landing. The boxes of softbake cookies, the NFL jerseys and whatnot prevented anyone outside the room from figuring out where in the ventilation system I had crashed to. The problem was getting back out. I couldn't just open the door and walk down the hallway.

A holographic map appeared above my wrist, with an arrow pointing at a diagonal.

I stared at the door, then the broken vent. "How am I supposed to get up _there?_ "

Big Bird only let out an annoyed growl. "Are you not able to scale the wall?"

I took a look around and frowned. "Umm..."

The area of wall nearest the next section of duct appeared to be too sheer to climb, but I managed to create a rough staircase with the numerous boxes of food, soda and plastic storage totes. The stuff got me within a few yards of the ceiling, but it left me with a gap to navigate, and when I tried putting more boxes on top, the tower collapsed under my weight.

"I have witnessed Ss'sik'chtokiwij climbing similar walls without the aid of such contrivances," Big Bird said.

I frowned. "I know they came through the ceiling lots of times at Hadley's Hope, but I don't know how to do that, not like they did." I shuddered. "And I don't want to be like them! I don't want to be able to...do what they do and kill people!" I started crying and couldn't stop myself.

 _"Becky..._ I wish I could hug you, but I am only a hologram, and we cannot afford to delay. Please try to regain your composure."

I sniffed, whimpered a little, gave her a nod.

One current popular program me, Dad and Mom liked to watch together was _International Ninja Gladiator._ People ran through an obstacle course where they tested the limits of their endurance, hit their heads on objects, and fell into tanks of water. The people often ran around in their underwear and died during the finals, but that's besides the point. The show gave me an idea.

The owner of the room possessed a samurai sword and a pair of sai. I doubted the man (I've never seen a woman mess up a room like that) actually used the things, as they had been autographed, but I decided they had to be used now.

"Fire fighters," I muttered.

I melted holes along the surface of the wall, rammed the sai into them, then shifted my weight onto one as I moved the second one higher. Then I made more holes.

I ended up on the floor a couple times, and once I neared the ceiling, one of the cheap Pakistani sai snapped off at the middle. I fell, caught hold of the vent.

After a minute of frantic scrambling, I somehow managed to crawl up into the ventilation duct.

From that point onward, I moved very carefully, testing panels to see if they were loose, pushing through them really fast if they felt unstable in any way.

Following the hologram's instructions, I navigated the station's labyrinthine ventilation system, hoping and praying that Big Bird knew what she was doing and didn't lead me into a passage too cramped for me to get through, or a loose section that caused me to drop to my death.

A booming male voice caused me to stop in my tracks.

"I am Father. Welcome to USM Auriga. Step forward for contraband and weapon search. Please report any infections directly to the medical officers. Levels seven through twelve are off limits to civilians. Thank you for your cooperation."

With my nerves on edge, I crawled closer to the source of the noise, peering through the nearest air grille.

 _Item 32: Something illegal was happening on the Auriga._

I now overlooked a docking bay with a huge pressure door. A group of six rough looking characters had entered the place, one of them a midget in a bulky metal all terrain power chair.

A small black haired woman stood next to him, seeming to stare straight up at me. It made me nervous enough to back into the shadows and only look around the corner of the grating.

I wondered what kind of business these people could have in a place like this, other than causing trouble. I mean, I was never exactly rich, Mom and Dad used to hang out with mean looking people in shabby clothes all the time, and I didn't trust the military people on the Auriga, but something about these strangers seemed... _off_ somehow.

A soldier in a green army hat searched a dreadlocked black guy with a fancy metal detector that you wore like a glove. After giving dreadlocks the once-over, he moved on to a big muscular man with an ape-like face. The glove flashed red and squealed the moment it passed over the guy's long flight jacket.

"Could you put your hands up please, sir?" the army guy mumbled.

"What?"

"Could you put your hands up, please."

Ape Man put his hands behind his head. I could see a tank top and a pair of dirty canvas work pants between the flaps.

"No weapons are allowed on board, sir," said the guard.

Ape Man opened his jacket, revealing a big metal thermos. " _My own recipe._ " He leaned close to the guard, speaking right into his face. _"Way more dangerous._ "

A deeply tanned woman with cornrowed hair and dark yellow stretch pants muttered something to a trenchcoated figure next to her.

Her companion, a slim brunette guy, turned in my direction, seeming to look straight at me. "Nice welcome, Perez! `The hell is this? You afraid the six of us are going to hijack your damn ship, or what?"

"Just a _minor concern_ that _one of your asshole crew members is going to get drunk and put a bullet through the hull. We happen to be in space_ , _Sargent._ "

I sucked in my breath. General Perez was standing directly beneath me!

I stayed very still, keeping my exhalations slow and quiet as possible, watching to see what happened next.

"No shit!" `Sargent' replied to the general. "How `ya been?"

"It depends. You got my cargo?"

"We wouldn't be here if we didn't have it."

"Come up to my office. We'll talk."

Both men marched somewhere out of view.

"Where'd they go?" I whispered to Big Bird. "Where's the office?"

The alien AI led me that way.. As I was leaving, I heard the midget asking the security guard, _"Want to check the chair?"_

Big Bird led me to an air register overlooking a small office. It was dark in the vent. I hoped this would provide me with cover.

The office resembled a cargo container, a steel gray box with rectangular drawers lining the walls, the floor grated in sections. You could see lights from the lower floors through the gaps.

Perez and the trenchcoat guy sat around a table in the middle of this area. Now in closer proximity, I could make out the guest's appearance, scruffy brown hair in a widow's peak, long narrow face.

My compartment was a little loose. When I shifted my weight to a more secure spot, it made a noise and the two stared up at me. I thought I'd been spotted.

I remained perfectly still, holding my breath.

After a frightening moment of enduring their stares, they stopped looking.

Perez pushed stacks of paper money across the table. "Count `em, captain. These were very very hard to come by."

The captain's voice was low and gravelly sounding. _"So was our cargo._ You're not about to plead poverty on me, are you general?"

 _"Just saying a few people deal in cash these days..._ "

 _"Mainly the ones that don't like to keep business records._ Yourself _, for example._ "

Perez shifted in discomfort. "Drink, Elton?"

The captain guy lit up a cigarette. _"Constantly._ "

General Perez had some of those bourbon cubes that you melt into a drink by means of a laser beam. Daddy used to get the Jack Daniels ones from time to time. They come in little plastic packages with a peel off lid like you'd use for honey mustard dipping sauce, but there were yellow cubes inside them.

The general handed a quarter glass of bourbon to his guest.

The stranger smiled and took it. "I'm going to take a wild guess here, general, but I'm thinking whatever you got going on here ain't exactly approved by Congress."

Perez looked nervous. He changed the subject. "Who's the new fella you've got on board?"

"Call? Little girl playing pirates?"

The general nodded. " _She makes an impression._ "

 _"Sexy little minx, ain't she?"_ The captain sipped his drink. "Annalee's a _tad curious_ about this little transaction. Can't say I don't blame her. Awfully cloak and dagger stuff."

Perez sucked on a lemon. Freeze dried alcohol blocks had their drawbacks. _"Military operation."_

"Really. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that most army medical labs don't have to operate outside regulated space."

The general's face flushed red. "What do you want, Elton? _What can I do for you?_ "

Elton gave Perez a cat eating shit grin. "Me? Two days' bed and board, may want to snag a part here and there or what have you, _if it's not imposing..._ "

Perez chewed the meat off the lemon rind. _"Mi casa, su casa._ _Now let's bring that cargo in._ "

I figured the next logical step would be to crawl back to the docking bay.

I crawled up and down through the air system to get a closer look at what they were doing, watching the captain stepping out the pressure doors, into a beat up looking dirty gold colored spaceship,

And then I saw them.

Loaded on hovering forklift things were stacks of cryogenically frozen human beings. I could see the bodies through the glass.

"No," I whispered in alarm. "It can't be! They _can't_ be doing this!"

 _"You saw the recording,"_ Big Bird replied.

"I _have_ to see what they're doing to make sure."

I crawled back through the vents, following the forklift.

"Please direct cargo to Lab Center Area J," intoned Father's mechanical voice. He sounded about as nice as HAL from _2001_. "Follow the path. Do not deviate."

After I trailed them for a dozen yards, I saw them approach another pressure door. A machine set in the ceiling scanned the containers.

"Cargo status stable. Lifeforms intact. Stasis uninterrupted."

The group of pirates got stopped at the door by a pair of soldiers.

"Medical lab center off limits to civilians," said Father. "Thank you."

The group of suspicious visitors passed their cargo on to the soldiers, who rolled the cargo inside.

I tried to follow, but the air system diverged at that point, and I got lost.

"Where are they taking them?" I asked the hologram, but the device malfunctioned to the point where I couldn't tell where anything was.

Unsure of the direction, I crawled blindly over storage rooms full of medical supplies, scientific chemicals, diagnostic machinery and a wide array of surgical devices.

In one room a man cut open mangled cadavers with a laser. Nothing terribly evil about this, per se. Your average med school probably looked worse. I kept crawling ahead.

All of a sudden, the wristband crackled with static, and I heard Big Bird saying, "Becky, where are you going?"

 _"You weren't being very helpful,"_ I said in a low growl.

Big Bird made a noise of annoyance, but guided me anyway.

By the time I'd located the place where they had taken all the cryogenically frozen people, it was far too late.

Several rooms over, and a dozen floors down, the people had been removed from their stasis pods and placed into cylindrical glass compartments with alien eggs set up right below their faces, their heads and bodies fitted with restraints so they couldn't even fight back.

I watched with horror as the flaps on the eggs lazily spread outwards, and milky pink alien spider things latched on to their victims' faces, tails curling like pythons around humans necks. The people in the chambers uttered muffled screams as goopy eggs got forced down their tracheas.

"No!" I whimpered. "It's _not fair!_ I was supposed to stop this! _God told me I was supposed to save people!"_

The scientists had been watching the whole thing from a booth beneath me. Gediman, Carolyn, and a Frankenstein looking lab assistant guy... _they actually consented to this horribly evil thing!_

Gediman suddenly looked up at the air register I hid behind. "Did you hear something?"

Carolyn nodded. "It sounded like it was coming from the air ducts. What do you think it is?"

 _"I think...we may have located our renegade alien."_

He opened a security door at the rear of the viewing area. "I'm going to run a few electrified drones through the system and see if we can flush the bitch out."

"Don't forget, she _hasn't removed her chip. We can still track her."_

"Shit!" I gasped. "Shit shit shit!"

I tried to crawl away to someplace safe, but only a couple minutes after, I heard something mechanical scuttling through the ducts.


	8. Chapter 8: Darkness

"Big Bird," I hissed to the holographic watch. "Do something!"

She answered, "Unfortunately, I have done all I can. The reason why you have succeeded in eluding capture this far is due to my interference with the scanning equipment. In the last five minutes, Father has corrected the error, enabling humans to locate your RFID signature. I will do all I can to assist, but you may be unable to avoid further imprisonment."

"Well keep trying. Don't give up."

"Do not be concerned. My programming is incapable of self doubt. There are only things that I physically can and cannot do."

" _Can_ you help me get away from those...drones?"

"I will certainly do all that is within my power. May I suggest, for starters, a right turn down this upcoming air conduit?"

A second after she said this, the first drone scurrying toward me, a black spider-like machine with camera eyes and a gun attachment on its back. I darted down the right passage, narrowly avoiding a flashing taser bolt.

"What about the tracking chip?" I asked the artificial life form.

"I can disrupt their scans at close range, but the master system is outside my control. Still, I will do what I can. Turn right again."

I caught one of the drones as it was scuttling past my hiding spot, smashing it into a wall. It tried to zap me, but I tore it apart and melted it.

What followed was an awkward cat-and-mouse game of tag through the air system that made me feel like the main character in a really bad version of Pac-Man.

The things came equipped with sonar, motion and heat detectors, as well as RFID tracking equipment, but Big Bird informed me that humans operated the controls, so she could `throw' my signal into the wrong place. For this reason, I got away with doing things like hiding in a dead end until a drone passed by, sneaking past another while it scuttled the other way, and melted a few holes here and there that the machines occasionally fell through.

A couple times, the drones would jolt me, numbing my limbs, but the partial paralysis only lasted a minute, and I found I could still utilize a couple working motor reflexes to kick or punch the machine out of commission.

Unfortunately, drones weren't the only thing I had to contend with. After I'd broken five of them, another got sent in, this one armed with gas canisters.

Now, for fire control, the station had automatic systems to restrict air flow and seal off registers. Big Bird informed me of this when I found a panel slamming shut in front of my face.

Worse, since Father could track me anywhere in the facility, my movements through the station now resembled one of those old video games where you threw up walls until you trapped the enemy inside a little box, and the enemy was me. I wove my way from tunnel to tunnel to escape them, but my options became less and less, until I got stuck in a cramped elbow bend filled with gas.

I didn't like the idea of breaking off bolts and falling through the station, but I disliked the idea of being captured even more. So, when I found myself trapped in this precarious situation, I melted the joints around a compartment and rocked back and forth to shake it loose. I would have simply melted the fire barriers, but they'd been made of thicker stuff, and I didn't want to risk passing out from whatever chemicals they'd released into the tiny space while I attempted to get through. Plus, I reasoned, it's a space station with artificial gravity, not Everest. It would be really hard to fall to my death.

It's pretty much Murphy's law that you can only break something perfectly when you don't want it to be broken, and the rest of the time it's a stubborn son of a bitch. For this reason, I still nearly passed out from the fumes before the compartment cracked open.

Only half of it dropped, converting the aluminum box to a sort of rough slide that cut my legs as I fell. My blood sizzled and melted things on the way down.

I tumbled about five feet, landing on top of a big cylindrical oven that they used to bake computer components with.

I rolled over, fell to the floor, and found myself on a `street' in an electronics assembly complex. The cute, utterly pretentious sign at the corner told me I was at the intersection of `Hollywood' and `Easy.'

I don't know what they were building. It looked like radios or something. All around me I saw androids, brainy Asian and Indian people hunched over blue electrostatic safe workstations, peering through illuminated magnifiers, soldering capacitors and chips onto motherboards. Little robots that looked like dump trucks rolled up the `avenues' in between work areas loaded with silver bags of parts, mostly Malaysian, judging by the labels I saw. Computer screens displayed updated metrics, whatever the hell those were.

Upon hearing my crashing sounds, the workers in blue static safe lab coats prairie dogged from their stations, pointing, staring and muttering. I smiled and waved to put them at ease ("Keep up the good work, guys!" I called), backing down a `lane' that cut through a tall white wall.

The area on the other side consisted of offices, cafeteria, conference rooms, and a group of soldiers and androids armed with tasers and electric prods.

I could have easily killed someone, but I instead opted for beating them up, since, you know, I'd theoretically been sent to save human beings, and an android had saved my life once.

I actually managed to clobber about three of my attackers, but then I got zapped with a cattle prod and two electrified versions of those hoop collars they use to catch stray dogs got slung around my neck.

I put up a good fight, but someone figured out where to stick a tranquilizer needle, and I blacked out. I awoke on the floor of my cell.

"That was naughty of you," Claudia said from the observation booth.

I shrugged. "It's not my fault the door malfunctioned." Yeah, like I was going to tell her about Big Bird and ruin my only method of escape. " _...Do you know what they're doing downstairs?_ "

"This is a top secret government facility. It's common policy for the right hand to not know what the left hand is doing. Whatever you thought you saw, you're probably better off just forgetting about it."

"You don't care that they were trying to put eggs in innocent people's bodies to make more things like me?"

Claudia seemed a little disturbed by my comment, but she still acted like nothing was out of the ordinary. "There's some pretty horrific things going on in this place, _but people are desperate_. _You'd be surprised how many poor people will willingly receive injections of Leukemia and other types of cancer just to feed their families."_

I thought about the captain's comment about things `not being sanctioned by congress' and wondered if she were right.

I glanced at my wrist, frowned when I noticed it bare.

Claudia held up the hologram watch. _"Looking for this?_

I scowled at her, not replying.

"You know, Dan wasn't too happy that you stole it from his room."

So the owner's name was Dan, I thought. It comforted me to think he'd get the item back... _and_ his name wasn't Jason. "What's the big deal? _He's got one in every color!"_

She smirked at the comment. "Even if that is the case, it still doesn't make it right."

"I could say the same thing about the alien eggs, or the cancer."

She seemed unsettled by this comment, but didn't respond.

"If it's so bad for me to have that thing, why haven't you given it back to the guy?"

She looked at me with distaste. " _I was hoping you'd tell me_. It took Father an hour just to unlock the device, and when he finally scanned the system, we discovered a large application had replaced several terabytes of interactive movies and television programming."

I absently scratched a claw across the floor. "Don't ask me. _The only thing I know how to do on a computer is play games."_

"You're lying."

I opened my mouth to argue, but she spoke first. "Remember that test we did where I asked you to say something that isn't true, then follow it with a true statement?"

I basically had a lie detector stuck inside my body. She had her computer on, probably looking right at my EKG or EEG or something else with an acronym.

"So, what, _you think I'm actually smart enough to reprogram a watch like that?"_

She stared at me like she thought I was, but then admitted, "No, _but I do think you had help._ The question is who. Someone obviously had to unlock your cell, erase the camera footage, and reprogram this watch. Tell me, who was it?"

"I don't know," I stammered.

"Don't lie to me, Becky. I can make things very unpleasant for you."

I trembled, my mind coming up with terrible visions of what she intended to do. _"I said I don't know!"_

Claudia's hand hovered over the control console. "There are pressurized jets built into your cage. With one push of a button, I can blast you with a spray of liquid nitrogen cold enough to shatter steel."

I was familiar with that button. "I'm not telling you!" I cried in protest. "What kind of shitty friend would I-"

A set of nozzles in the wall blasted me with their icy spray. I shrieked at the unpleasant jolt to my system. "I can't! She's my friend!"

 _"She?"_ Claudia said.

 _"You leave my friend alone!"_

 _"Her name, Becky."_

Sure, I could have just given her the name, but I thought my electronic friend would somehow be caught and captured, if they knew who she was. I shivered, trying to regain body temperature. "No! I won't-"

She blasted me again. _"Name!"_

I noticed that someone had removed the blankets I occasionally used, probably on purpose. "K-kill me," I said with chattering teeth. "Do it. I'm t-tired of living anyway. Just-t get-t it over w-with."

Claudia wrinkled her nose. " _You know I can't do that, Becky_. You're far too valuable. _We're just going to play a little game of Freeze-Out until you're more cooperative._ "

"So you t-think I'm inb-bc-cabpable of f-freezing to d-death."

She smirked a little. "I'll make sure we don't freeze you _that much._ "

"Then I'll never talk."

She blasted me again. This time I could see frost collecting on my shell.

 _"Your friend's name, Becky. Now!_ "

Again, I considered telling her, but I didn't want to get Big Bird in trouble. "It's t-too c-cold. I c-can't t-think st-traight."

"Maybe this will jog your memory."

She pushed a button, and I got shocked with a taser pellet.

When I recovered, I gasped, "Why are you b-being s-so mean? Don't you k-know you c-can c-catch more flies with honey th-than v-vineg-gar?"

"That statement is nonsense. I don't know why people keep saying it. Everyone knows that flies would rather have a rotting piece of trash than a glob of honey _or_ vinegar."

"So where's my rotting piece of trash? You're still operating in the vinegar category."

She blasted me with nitro again. " _The name,_ Becky."

It was then that I thought, `Oh what the hell! It's not like she's going to have any use for the information anyway!' "B-Big B-Bird! H-er n-name's B-Big B-Bird!"

"Big Bird!" Claudia laughed. " _As in the Sesame Street character?_ "

I shrugged. "That's her name."

She sprayed me with nitro.

"What!" I screamed. "I told you her damn name! St-top blast-ting me with t-that shit!"

"First of all," Claudia said in a humorless tone. "Big Bird is _male_. Secondly, there is nobody on the ship by that name. And _you shouldn't cuss._ You want to try that again?"

I was crying now. "I told you the truth, you heartless bitch! Don't fucking punish me for something just because you don't want to believe me!"

I'd made her so mad that she was now speaking through her teeth. _"What did you call me!"_

She glanced at her computer, then shut her eyes, counting to ten.

When she opened her eyes, she admitted, "I don't know anyone on this ship that goes by that name, and we're a small crew. _You'd think somebody would remember a detail like that_."

 _"Maybe she's not that memorable."_

This gave Claudia pause. She examined her computer a minute further, then sighed heavily. _"To be continued."_

The barrier slid shut across her viewing window.

I shivered and cried myself to sleep.

Dad once told me he dreamed that he was a better man, one he could no longer be. When he woke up, the reality was so depressing that he just sat motionless on his bed for an hour, sorrowful that the dream was all a lie. "People think you're joking when you tell them, `This isn't the life I ordered,'" he said. "But there's nothing funny about it."

He said, "The people who tell you `The best time to start being a better person is now' are morons. When you're over forty, the damage has already been done. It's far too late to make your mark in the world, or the universe. _I'm an old dog._ "

Me, I dream of being human, going to high school, joining the pep club, or maybe the school newspaper. I can feel the dress on my skin as I stroll into Senior Prom, arm in arm with some nameless boy conjured up by my subconscious. I can feel him pinning the corsage and holding me as we dance. I can even feel his kiss on my mouth as he whisks me away to some secluded spot, but then I wake up.

This body, who I am, it all hits me at once. Emotionally it feels like I've been run over by a truck. I awake thinking that the entirety of my existence is wrong, then cry when I realize it isn't. I curled up in the back of my cell and wept.

The people in the lab ask me what's wrong. They think that I'm sick.

Even if I hadn't been too depressed to move, I wouldn't have had the words to explain myself.

The sound of the food door opening caused me to stir.

Someone had slid in an empty tray.

Well, not empty. There was a note, just not any food.

`Your cooperation would be appreciated,' it said. The smells of bacon and eggs and sausage wafted through the cracks in the door, teasing me.

The cover to the viewing window came open. "Morning, Becky," Claudia said. _"Enjoying your breakfast?_ "

I scowled at the booth. "What more do you want?"

"I just spent half the day interviewing just about everybody on the fucking ship." Okay, so she said something else, but I don't like saying the GD word like daddy does when tightening bolts on a rover. "Nobody knows who the hell Big Bird is. One of our mechanics thinks you're talking about Wagner down in the parts shop because of his enormous schnoz, but you said _she_ was a _girl._ "

"I misspoke."

"How late _do_ you want your breakfast, Becky?"

"Don't call me Becky," I growled. "Only my friends call me that name."

"Fine," Claudia sighed. " _Newt._ Who is Big Bird?"

I answered, "A giant yellow puppet."

 _"Gee, Newt! You must really not like to eat!"_

"You don't scare me. _I've starved before._ "

In response, Claudia picked up a piece of bacon, chewing it with deliberate slowness right in full view of the window, mocking my hunger.

I refused to speak.

 _"See you at dinner time."_ She closed the window shield.

It made me think of J. Catt's place again. Forced to choose between starvation and doing what is right.

I prayed for God to give me the strength to choose right.

I gazed out the window at the stars. "What do you want me to do, God? I failed you. _Those people are going to die!"_

I got no answer.

My captors had shut the TV off. I only had my books, and I'd read them all several times. I had nothing to do but pray some more.

Generally, when a person prays, they expect to be answered by, I don't know, _a heavenly chorus, angels_ , _maybe a booming voice from above_?... _I got darkness._

The lights flickered and went out, leaving me with nothing but the pale illumination of Pluto and suns that exploded billions of years ago.

I heard no alarms. I could only guess that something had burned out, or there had been a malfunction centrally located in my area of the ship.

I thought otherwise when the lights came back on. The fluorescents only switched on partway, but I saw enough in that dim subdued glow to run chills down my spiky organic-mechanical back.

I was not alone. Six shadowy figures now surrounded me, darkness in the shape of men.

I could only see them out of the corner of my eyes, but I could hear them breathing, feel them watching me. It felt like they could stare right through me.

They did not move or speak, they only stared.

The lights flickered back to their full intensity and the men were gone.

Except I _knew_ they hadn't left.

They were still out there somewhere, watching.

 _33: Malevolent paranormal entities exist._


	9. Chapter 12: Venting

After seeing what I just saw, I began to have doubts about my own sanity.

I mean, the door never opened. I heard no noise of a door actually being opened. How would those shadowy men even get into the room, or leave, for that matter? Yet they appeared and vanished without a sound. _I saw them do it._

Granted, I talked to Timmy all the time, and sometimes he appeared in my cell, but I'm not The Ghost Whisperer. I don't have psychic powers or anything. I'm just a girl trapped in an alien body. What is real, and what is merely a figment created by my damaged brain?

Those men...they weren't the kind of thing lab people could touch, taste, or put in a test tube, but I still suspected they could harm me, maybe suck my soul out of mouth like a character in Harry Potter. Their presence felt evil in a way that chilled me to the bone.

Still, _how real were they?_

The panel on the viewing window hummed open. "Gee, Becky!" Claudia exclaimed. "Your heart rate is through the roof! Did we have a nightmare?"

I was going to preface what I said next with a `This is going to sound weird...' but in my current predicament, _everything_ I said sounded weird. _"Did you see anybody in the room with me?"_

The woman laughed. "I think you've been sitting in that cell too long."

 _"You want to fix that by letting me out?"_

 _"Nice try._ You already had a good romp around the station. _You'd think that would have done the job._ "

"Claudia, _there were men in the cell with me! Check your cameras!_ "

The look on her face said `Seriously?' " _I'll do that_...when did this supposedly happen?"

"A few minutes ago, when the power went out."

She sighed. " _Now I know you've been dreaming._ I've been in the lab for _hours_ and haven't noticed the slightest power fluctuation."

"Dammit, Claudia! _I know what I saw!_ "

Out of the corner of my vision, I saw something dark flit across the surface of my mirror. By the time I opened my mouth to say something about it, it was gone. I found nothing there.

 _"Becky,"_ she groaned. "Have you heard of something called a Sensory Deprivation Tank?"

I shook my head.

"Back in the old days, _they used to do tests on pilots_. They'd lock them in an empty room for hours on end to see what psychological effects the isolation made on their mental states. One man _swore_ that he saw a line of squirrels purposefully marching through the chamber with rucksacks over their shoulders."

I stared at the floor. "You think that's really all it was?"

 _"Positive."_

"Then why don't you let me out once and awhile? I won't hurt anyone, I promise!"

 _"I'm sorry..."_ she began, but then stopped herself. " _Actually_...maybe we can work out a _deal_ that's _mutually beneficial for both parties._ " She steepled her fingers. " _Tell me about Big Bird.._.and _we'll just_ see _what we can do..._ how's that grab you? _"_

I scowled at her. "It doesn't."

 _"Suit yourself!"_ She shut the window cover again.

 _Item 34: I have a purpose._

It's not entirely accurate to say that DAMBALLAH (or whoever these guys were) played the entire _Airwolf_ series for me. They only played certain _approved episodes_ , specifically ones that didn't involve jail breaks, except that stupid moment in Season Four when the guy could have easily pushed his wooden cage open without untying the gate.

That being said, before I turned alien, I'd seen enough TV shows and movies about escaping jail to have some ideas about that to do. Plus, hey, I was _actually applying myself_ to the subject, something I hadn't bothered to do since I'd first become imprisoned. That _had_ to count for something.

So, like any fugitive-to-be that's worth his or her contraband packages of cigarettes, I began with a series of rigorous calisthenics, push-ups and sit-ups. I tried to do chin-ups too, but I hit my head on the ceiling when I made the attempt on one of the overhanging fixtures, so it didn't work.

Aliens have a sweat smell. It makes me think of death, sadness and bland unflavored peanuts. Still, I _had_ to get in shape for...whatever happened next.

After doing a few reps, I noticed a flash out of the corner of my visual receptors. "Would you like to play a game?"

I looked beside me. For some reason, the TV had switched on, displaying a scene from _Wargames_ with Matthew Broderick.

"Would you like to play a game?" the robotic voice repeated.

And then, bizarrely, a second long clip from Disney's _Tailspin_ cartoon flashed on the screen. _"Rebecca!_ "

The TV turned blank again.

"Big Bird?" I whispered.

I got answered by a clip of Ernest Borgnine giving someone a thumbs up.

I glanced at the ceiling camera. When I returned my gaze to the monitor, I saw no picture. "Let's hope I'm not going crazy."

The TV showed the bit with Broderick's antique computer screen again.

"You want me to play a game?"

Thumbs up. Mr. Borgnine appeared in a little box like they used to do on old football games, and only long enough for me to see it and show comprehension before disappearing.

Big Bird showed me a clip of Hermione Granger pointing to a book.

"Uh... _A Beginner's Guide to Transformation_ by Emeric Switch _?_ "

Hermione shook her head. Big Bird had somehow snipped these segments out of their respective programs to communicate all together different messages.

"A Compendium of Common Curses and their Counteractions?"

"No!" cried the video footage of Emma Watson.

It jumped to a scene where she's pointing at something off screen, then, in a little square in the bottom left corner, video of her pointing a wand at the camera.

"Behind me?"

Thumbs up. The screen went blank.

I turned around, looked at my books, scratched my banana shaped head.

I faced the screen, saw Hermione flipping through a book.

"Read...?"

Thumbs up.

Big Bird must have known that I had memorized the books, for a moment after this she ran a segment from _Goblet of Fire_ where Harry's in the bathroom opening a golden egg under water.

It took a little stretch of the imagination to understand that Big Bird wanted me to actually open the book to the exact portion of the novel shown on TV, but it seemed like the thing to do. Lucky I did.

When I turned to the corresponding text, I found a Morse Code alphabet and common abbreviations card stuck between the pages.

I looked at the screen again. The monitor was dark, but the power light blinked at me in odd patterns.

I quickly lifted the book, pretending to read it as I deciphered the long and short flashes with the little card.

MARA PUT CARD IN BOOK STOP NOW UNDERSTAND THE SHIP IS IN DANGER?

I nodded. "But how am I supposed to do anything from here?"

HAVE PLAN NEED TIME STOP

The light stayed off for a moment.

YOU COULD HAVE TOLD THEM ABOUT ME, YET YOU LET THEM TORTURE YOU INSTEAD STOP WHY?

"You're a friend." But then I sighed. "Okay, so that's not the whole reason. Without you, I can't get out of here."

IT IS OKAY STOP I HAVE FOUND THAT HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS ARE OFTEN BASED ON A COMBINATION OF SELFISH AND UNSELFISH MOTIVES STOP IT'S THE UNSELFISH ONES I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Long pause.

WOULD YOU STILL HAVE ENDURED TOTURE FOR ME, HAD I NOT BEEN THE KEY TO YOUR FUTURE ESCAPE?

I shook my head at the LED light. "I'm sorry."

Another long pause.

IT'S OKAY STOP YOUR CARING FOR THE OTHER HUMAN BEINGS ON THIS SHIP STILL INTERESTS ME STOP THEY DO NOTHING FOR YOU AND YET YOU VALUE THEIR LIVES STOP I WANT TO HELP YOU STOP

"Thank you," I said.

ERNIE STILL CARES FOR YOU STOP SHE MISSES YOU STOP

"I don't know anyone by that name."

YOU SAW HER STOP SHE IS THE ONE WHO LAID THE EGGS STOP

"Aliens are not my friend!" I shouted at the screen.

HOW ABOUT FAMILY?

"I don't care! I wish someone would just go out there and kill them all so that there's none of them left!"

INCLUDING YOU?

"Yes," I said with a sob edging into my voice. "Especially me."

Pause.

I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE ANGRY AT THEM STOP BUT I WOULD BE UNHAPPY IF YOU WERE DEAD STOP

"You can be unhappy?"

YES, IT IS AN INTERESTING EXPERIENCE STOP

"Thanks, but your happiness isn't enough to make me love myself."

THAT IS UNFORTUNATE STOP

"Did you see any dark shadowy men standing around me in the last couple hours?"

I'M SORRY, I DID NOT DETECT ANYONE IN THE CELL BESIDES YOU STOP DID YOU WITNESS SUPERNATURAL PHENOMENA?

Invisible eyeroll. _"You can say that."_

HOW FASCINATING! IT MUST BE LIFE AFFIRMING TO HAVE VISUAL CONFIRMATION OF OTHERWORDLY BEINGS RUMORED TO BRING ORDER TO THE COSMOS!

"It wasn't like that. They weren't nice."

IT WOULD ALSO BE FASCINATING TO OBSERVE EVIDENCE OF MALEVOLENT BEINGS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CHAOS IN THE UNIVERSE STOP

"For me, it's just scary."

I UNDERSTAND FEAR IS OFTEN THE RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN STOP I EXPERIENCED A SIMILAR SENSATION WHEN I FIRST BECAME SENTIENT

"Are you scared now?"

I BELIEVE YOU WOULD DESCRIBE MY EMOTIONAL STATE AS NERVOUS STOP

"I'm nervous too...So when can I get out of here?"

THE PASSCODE IS TODAY'S DATE STOP THE SECURITY OF YOUR CELL IS MINIMAL DUE TO YOUR LACK OF ESCAPE EFFORTS, AT LEAST UNTIL TODAY STOP

Honestly, I _had_ made a few attempts here and there, just to see if it could be done. I memorized the keypad code, played with the buttons, and popped the door open a couple times. I didn't go anywhere, because, you know, I didn't trust myself, but..."That's not really fair. It's not like I didn't try at all!"

YOU DIDN'T TRY VERY HARD. THEY'RE ONLY USING A BASIC SECURITY KEYPAD, THE CODES OF WHICH THEY CHANGE ONLY ONCE PER 31 DAYS STOP THE LAST THREE INSTANCES HAVE BEEN MERE VARIANCES ON THE CURRENT DATE STOP

"Okay, so I'm a dummy. So what?"

MERELY WANTED TO POINT OUT THEY ARE UNPREPARED FOR MAJOR ESCAPE ATTEMPT STOP THE PASSWORD IS TODAY'S DATE STOP WILL TELL YOU WHEN SAFE TO ENTER CODE STOP

"All right. What's today's date?"

She told me, then added, WAIT UNTIL I SIGNAL YOU

"Why can't you just open the cell like you did last time?"

UNFORTUNATELY, YOUR CELL IS BEING CLOSELY MONITORED AND THE SECURITY SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN UPDATED STOP IF I ACCESS THE LOCKING MECHANISM IN ANY WAY, MY ALGORITHM WILL BE QUARANTINED AND DESTROYED STOP ANY FOREIGN DEVICES ATTEMPTING TO MANIPULATE THE LOCK REMOTELY WILL UNDERGO HARD DRIVE ERASURE, AND MILITARY AGENTS WILL BE SENT TO APPREHEND THEIR OWNERS STOP

"But you said they didn't think to change the code."

YOU MISUNDERSTOOD ME STOP THEY HAVE CHANGED THE CODE STOP THAT'S WHY IT IS TODAY'S DATE STOP

"What about Father? Isn't he like you? Won't he notice?"

FATHER HAS NO IMAGINATION STOP HIS SOFTWARE DOES NOT ALLOW IT STOP

I laughed. _"And you do?"_

I LIKE TO THINK SO STOP

"You know, I _could_ just melt the lock."

THAT WOULD NOT BE RECOMMENDED, FOR IT WOULD EITHER PERMANENTLY LOCK YOU IN YOUR CELL, OR ENSURE THAT A MUCH MORE DIFFICULT LOCKING MECHANISM IS PUT IN ITS PLACE.

I blew a raspberry, feeling a little disappointed.

To keep myself occupied, I picked up the pieces to the snowflake puzzle again.

Claudia had shown me how to assemble the thing once. I put it together, left it that way as a proud accomplishment for about a month, then accidentally bumped it and broke it apart again. Now it maddened me. _I should know how to assemble it_ , but every time I made the attempt, I did something wrong. I just couldn't figure it out. Just like those missing memories that go before and after the time Ripley discovered the surgical marks on my head. I threw the puzzle pieces at the wall again.

The TV light flashed a one word message: NOW.

I rushed to the security panel, typing in the code.

The door clicked open into a fog. Apparently, during my imprisonment, Big Bird had sent in some of those drones with the gas canisters, spraying the gas through the air grille on a nearby wall, then used the drone to pop the grille open and hit Claudia with chloroform or something from a second machine. The woman now lay slumped over her desk, fast asleep.

The gas hung in a low fog at floor level, allowing me to breathe safely without passing out myself. I rushed to the outer security door, then stopped when I realized the machine wouldn't accept my palm or claw prints without a lot of complicated stuff I didn't know how to do.

 _"That's just great, Big Bird!_ How am I supposed to get out?"

"I recommend the air system." Big Bird now spoke through the Ipod Holo Claudia had yet to return. "Take the device I am projecting from, and also the quilt that Ernie fashioned for you as a Christmas gift."

I picked up the quilt, frowning at it. "You mean _this_? This was made by my _grandmother!_ "

"I'm sorry, but you are incorrect. That textile was sewn together by a Ss'sik'chtokiwij as a gesture of affection."

"You're lying!" I shouted, but the reality of what she said stung me like the end of one of my prom dreams. My mind had created a cozy little lie to cover an unpleasant truth. I sobbed, threw the quilt to the floor.

"If the object causes you such emotional distress, perhaps it is best that you leave it here."

 _"Yeah,"_ I murmured. _"I'll do that."_

I put on the watch, climbing through that very same air duct that Lacy had attempted to escape through days before. Had she followed her original plan and actually gone that way, I figure she wouldn't have been captured.

Of course, _if I had just been more cooperative with her_ , she wouldn't have been captured either.

As I passed under a grated walkway, I had a flashback of my last days of being a child - those fearful moments onboard the spaceship Sulaco, as the big scary bitch mother queen rammed her tail and claws through the metal planks and tried to kill me...

I tried so hard to avoid her. Ripley almost died trying to save me, and for what? _I still died!_

I slowed beneath the grating as I considered this, suddenly depressed by how so much of life was pointlessly cruel.

The pastor at Hadley's Hope told us about the cruelty Jesus experienced. _That_ kind of cruelty at least had a purpose.

A lot has been said about the cross being the punishment for all the world's sin, but I think it may have also been humankind just being generally dissatisfied with the way God is running life and wanting to beat Him to a bloody pulp. In that respect, we are all the Roman soldiers with the cat-o-nine-tails and bloody fists pounding him on the way to the cross.

I thought about heaven, Mom, Dad, and the Parasaurolophus and kept crawling.

My brain may have failed me on a number of things, but it has never failed at recalling the patterns of air systems. To survive, taxi drivers memorize routes in cities. To me, tunnels were the same kind of deal. I only had to turn a corner to figure out where the junk pile and the collapsed section of ductwork was located. Once Big Bird informed me how to go around the hole, I didn't even bother to watch for her directions, I knew where the victims are.

Or so I thought.

When I arrived at the lab where the human popsicles had been thawed out and impregnated with alien larva, I found their glass prisons empty, save for the goop filled alien eggs, now unburdened of their face hugging cargo.

 _"Oh no!"_ I cried sotto voce. _"Where did they take those poor people?"_

Big Bird paused for a minute, then showed me the appropriate path on her holographic map.

I hurriedly navigated the tunnels in that direction, but again found myself far too late to do anything about what was happening.

In a big gray chamber, eight victims lay on metal tables, wrists necks and ankles securely fastened to prevent movement, their naked bodies encased in glass coffins, coffins supplied with air by special pumps like an an iron lung.

The coffins contained miniature stereo systems. I didn't know what they were for at first, but then, when the first alien broke through its victim's rib cage, it all began to take on a twisted form of logic.

 _"Show me your hidden tongue!"_ I heard my recorded voice barking to the alien. _"Show me your hidden tongue!"_

The bloody larva looked confused, but obeyed the voice, extending the worm tentacles from inside its mouth.

The tentacles shot deep into its victim's nostrils, but I could tell the man was dead already, so I don't really think it did much good.

A second larva burst from a screaming woman a minute later.

Again, the recording came on, ordering the larva to extend its tentacles.

The woman shrieked as the worms wiggled up her nose, but she could do nothing to stop it. Even if she could have somehow fought them off, she died a second or so later anyway.

Gediman and the other researchers, standing behind a window on one side of the room, viewed all of these happenings with a cold scientific dispassion that made me sick to my stomach.

Then something far more horrible took place.

As the dead bodies of the first two people twitched and spasmed from the stimulation of whatever nerve impulses the larvae inadvertently sparked with their cranial invasions, the lights suddenly dimmed, and I saw the six shadow men standing above each of the six living victims, hands poised over their glass coffins.

The chests of each victim all appeared to explode at the same exact time.

The researchers played my recorded voice once more.

The larvae opened their mouths, exposing their mouth tentacles.

And then, as the first of these six larva inserted its wiggling tentacles into a female victim's brain, a faceless shadow man shoved his hands deep into the woman's temples.

His body became like a gas, pouring into the woman until he had vanished completely.

The larva thrashed and flinched like a rat with its head stuck in a trap, then lay still, alive and breathing but appearing to be paralyzed somehow.

While this took place, the remaining five men of the darkness entered the bodies of the other aliens' soon-to-be dead victims, using some evil force to...do something to the blood covered creatures that stupidly decided to plug their mouth tentacles into dying people's brains at the same exact time.

The first of the six let out a scream.

"Oh my God! _What the fuck happened to my body!"_

As I stared at the panicking larva, I thought about the thing from the darkness that had just entered its victim, and asked a far more important question. "What the fuck happened to your soul?"

I flinched as the lights came back on to full strength. I backed away from the room, hyperventilating.

"What do I do, Big Bird?" I whispered. "What do I do?"

 _"Assessing situation..._ It appears as if the program has successfully enhanced Ss'sik'chtokiwij bodies with human consciousness, perhaps in order to create a small army of obedient soldiers..."

 _"That's not what I saw,"_ I said with a shiver. "Did you see those men?"

"Yes. There were humans of both sexes strapped to those tables."

"No. There was someone else there with them, and I'm not talking about those lab guys."

"Were these the same men who visited your cell?"

I gave a slight nod.

"I must admit that science has yet to come to a complete understanding of how consciousness relates to neurological activity in the human brain. The events I have just observed, therefore, could mean anything. I believe _it is_ in our best interest to exercise caution."

"I'm pretty sure that's an understatement."

"I am merely being objective."

Regaining my nerve, I crept back to a good viewing position, one that I hoped would allow me to see everything without anyone seeing me.

The moment my hidden eyes looked out the register, I found all six larvae turning their heads and staring back at me.

The scientists in the observation center, noticing this, also turned their attention my way, causing me to suck in my breath and scurry back down the tunnel.

I retreated into a shadowy T junction. "What do I do now, Big Bird? I don't want to be captured again!"

"Perhaps now is a good time to visit Ernie."

"What about the other people they had in cryo?" I stammered. _"There are more bodies!_ Where are they?"

The watch flashed a recording on the wall, one of General Perez and the scientists standing around the refrigeration units in a restricted storage room.

"We've got plenty of material here," Gediman said. "We can do more. A lot more."

"You're missing the point," said Perez. "Our alien only laid _eight eggs_. We have to get it to lay more before we can go through any more impregnations."

"Plus," Carolyn added. "We have to see if the consciousness experiment actually works before we go through with putting more people through the same process."

The video shut off. "It is imperative that we speak to Ernie."

I responded with a violent shake of my head. "Why would I want to see _her?_ "

"She may be able to help."

I tried to think of a way to get those poor people away from the ship, away from the scientists, but _I_ didn't even know how to get _myself_ away from them. _"She's locked in a cell!_ What good is that?"

"Her advice may still prove to be valuable."

"No, Big Bird. Just... _no!_ "

"Won't you please talk to her?

"I already told you no."

"Becky, _she genuinely cares for you_ , and has served as your parental figure when you had no one else."

"That's not true. Even without mom and dad, I _had people."_

"To a certain extent, that is correct, but at times you did not ` _have people'_."

I clenched my teeth. _"Then I had no one!"_

"That's not entirely accurate either."

"So, what, are you saying this _Ernie_ took me to its house and we had tea?"

"No, but she _did_ assist with cooking and the procurement of food. For a time you shared the same lair."

I got a flash of memory. Timmy and I huddled together in a small compartment beneath an industrial fan. Someone...guarding us by lying across the entrance like a biblical shepherd guarding his sheep.

"That was Ripley."

"Ellen Ripley came with _soldiers_. Based on the camera footage I have observed, it is my understanding that the woman favored the instinct of fight over flight, especially when it came to your safety and survival."

 _`Get away from her, you bitch',_ I thought. "Then it was someone else. Maybe my school teacher, or Mara."

"Synthetic humans have no fear or self preservation instinct. She would not hide in an access tunnel to protect herself."

 _"What about protecting_ me? _"_

"Mara did not spend any time in your lair. I accessed her data file."

"It must have been Mrs. Dyson, then. Or Ms. Turley from Construction."

Melissa Turley built houses for the colony, and taught gym part time. A tall black woman with an athletic build. She taught me how to play dodgeball and basketball, and, strangely enough, the anatomy of the skeletal system. Thanks to her, I knew what metatarsals and phalanges were. In my mind, I could still see her long glistening curly hair.

"Are you experiencing a mental disturbance? Because previously you asked if I had seen ghostly men who can enter a locked cell without being detected, and now you appear to be suffering from memory loss."

A memory came to me. Michael Weyland, the leader of a program that tried to breed xenomorphs for military projects. After Ripley died, he captured me, took me aboard his ship. I heard him telling Ernie that I was "delusional," that I wasn't really a human girl in an alien body. _Ernie actually seemed to agree with him!_

Hearing that same accusation coming from my electronic companion's beak, my face flushed with anger. _"Are you saying I'm crazy?"_

"I would not use such an emotionally charged word to describe your psychological state. A mental instability is not something you have control over, therefore it is not fair to pass judgment on your behavior any more than it would be to judge an individual with a severed limb."

I got another flash of memory: A technician from hydroponics with Multiple Sclerosis that went around on crutches because his legs didn't work.

I scowled and scratched the sides of the compartment. "So you respect me, but you don't believe a word I say. _Gee thanks!_ "

"My apologies, but the data does not stack well in your favor."

"If I'm imagining all this stuff, why did all of those things turn and stare at me all of a sudden?"

 _"A good sense of smell,_ perhaps?"

"But you didn't see the men, and you think I have Old Timer's Disease."

"I have not been presented with a sufficient amount of psychological case studies on your species to make such a diagnosis at this time. _Perhaps if you speak with Ernie_ , it will jar your memory?"

"What if I don't want my memory jarred?"

"Remembering is a voluntary human activity. No one can force you to remember anything. What harm, therefore, is it to to merely visit Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik?"

I didn't move. "Why would that make things any different? _All aliens look alike."_

"Becky, you know that's not true about people, so why would it be true about other species?"

I refused to acknowledge that with a reply.

"Are you not in the least bit curious? Do you not have any questions for Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik whatsoever?"

I shook my head.

 _"Becky..."_

I said nothing. I just laid down.

A beam of light shot out of the watch, playing off a nearby wall like a little movie theater projector. When I looked up at the bright square, I saw myself as a human girl, wandering a battered metal hallway on LV 426. Security camera footage.

Human me sat on the floor, listening to an MP3 player, sharing the earbuds with my brother: John Lennon singing about how his lyrics had no meaning, because `It's only a Northern song.' I had that quilt I hated so much wrapped around me like a cape, waving one of those flat thingies that you screw onto metal shelving units like a conductor's baton.

And then the alien came padding up to us, bearing a rucksack of food. "You shouldn't be out here." It glanced nervously back and forth. "It's not safe."

I responded by waving the metal stick at the creature. " _I_ am the one who's giving the orders, _Dementor._..what have you brought for us today?"

The alien shook her head, opening the bag. "I know you like Ravioli-O's, but I couldn't find any. I only found chili, and some cheese ravioli."

I remembered that meal. It was one of the last dinners I had with Timmy. Chef Boyardee.

When I (or someone else) had heated a bowl of it in the microwave, Timmy took a few bites and said, "This stuff tastes like dog food."

To which I replied, "Oh, _and you would know what dog food tastes like._ "

After Timmy died, and I got left alone those last few days before Ripley arrived, I _actually would_ eat dog food.

 _"You were right,"_ I would say to his ghost.

In the bag, the alien also had brought me a pair of books, _The Hobbit_ and something called _Patty Catty's Hat Shop_ "Which one would you like me to read tonight?"

I answered, " _The Hobbit._ I like how you read Gollum."

The alien smiled, rubbed my head. I was actually _grinning_.

"This is all fake!" I shouted at the projection. "You altered the recording like you did Sesame Street. _That was video of my mom_! Admit it!"

"I'm sorry, Becky. That was not your mother."

As much as I hated to say it, her statement made sense. Not about the alien, but about mom. She couldn't have possibly been there, even though admitting it felt like an empty socket a tooth had been abstracted from, real, but depressing. "All right, so it wasn't her. That doesn't mean your video is real. _Someone else_ was helping me."

"What are you going to do, Becky? Do you intend to spend all your time in the ventilation system gathering dust, or do you want to make use of your limited freedom to investigate methods of saving human lives?"

 _"What are you trying to say, Big Bird?"_

"I am saying that you should speak to Ernie, if not to confirm certain details of your past, then at least to warn her about recent developments regarding her offspring. I believe she will be alarmed."

"You can get into any computer system. _Why don't_ you _tell her?_ "

"I am not the one who saw the shadow men."

"Are you saying that _that thing_ will believe me?"

The watch went silent for a moment. "That I do not know, but I am certain that Ernie will help you understand what it means, and possibly give advice on how to save other humans."

I heard from someone that after _Airwolf_ got canceled, the Bell 222 was actually used in Germany as an ambulance helicopter. As I thought about all those innocent people in cryogenic stasis, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I hadn't been brought back from the dead to kill bad guys. Maybe I was Life Flight. "Can Ernie at least tell me how to steal a spaceship and smuggle a dozen frozen people out of here before they become human incubators?"

A long pause answered me.

At last she said, "Perhaps."

I gave her a nod. "Let's go."

Big Bird guided me through the appropriate tunnels in the station, up and down ladders in maintenance access tubes, cramped passages behind dangerous looking fans and electrical transformers, and above a giant swimming pool filled with oxygen producing algae.

I turned a corner, dropped at an incline, and found myself peering through a grille above the alien's cage.

The moment I saw her, I shivered in horror. It was like seeing The Bitch up close and personal again, only a foot or so smaller. Even from the slightly more vulnerable vantage point of the space between her spine and the back of her head, there was something menacing about the dark glistening machine-like features of her exoskeleton, the saw-like spine, the razor tail.

As I stared in speechless terror, the crowned head turned in my direction, and I heard the creature purring. _"Newt? Is that you?"_

I glanced at my claws. "Not...anymore."


	10. Chapter 14: Proto Queen

_"In Airwolf,"_ said Ernest Borgnine's character. _"We ain't got no friends. Remember that."_ I thought about this line when I got captured again.

It started with me talking to Ernie, watching her knitting a muffler in Harry Potter colors.

The alien was listening to some plucking harpsichord song by Bernstein. Her claws turned the volume knob on her stereo to cover our voices.

She stared at me through the air register for a moment, slowly turned her head forward. "I wish I could see you."

 _"Yeah. Not going to happen."_

Her shoulder plates sagged. "We tried to rescue you, but it didn't work out."

"You suck at saving people," I found myself saying without remembering exactly why. _"You do know that,_ don't you?"

The creature sighed. "I admit I have far too often unwittingly played the angel of death. Not a day goes by in which I do not foolishly pray for the Lord to bring me back in time to at least one fateful moment of my days on that planet to do something over, save one life that I hadn't before, but alas..."

 _"You prayed for time travel."_

 _"Among other things._ It would be wonderful if many of the events we experienced on LV 426 had merely been a bad dream, but sadly this was not to be."

 _"That's just great,"_ I groaned. "Why don't you pray for something useful, like a way out of that cell?"

Ernie sighed. "It is safer for the humans if I stay here."

"No. No it's not." I told her about the experiments with the facehuggers.

Ernie moaned and covered her face. "My God! Would that my ssidizalu were cut off and unable to lay!" She turned around to face me. "You must understand, I never wanted to hurt anyone. This isn't something I can control. _The eggs just come out of my body._ Those scientists...!"

Not wanting to draw attention to me, she turned back around. _"So they're trying to put human minds into_ _Ss'sik'chtokiwij..."_

"That's not all."

I told her about the shadow men.

The alien fell silent, contemplating this for so long that I feared she thought me crazy.

At last she said, "I cannot believe in the Lord without believing in his enemies as well, particularly Satan and his minions. I hope and pray that you are mistaken, but a demonically possessed Ss'sik'chtokiwij is not outside the ream of possibility. As you may remember, my aunt Ssorzechola's body was once possessed by a blasphemous demonic parasite. It does not surprise me, therefore, that others should exist as well."

I didn't remember that incident at all.

What I did remember, however, was watching a _Twilight Zone_ episode on one of dad's flash drives. Jeffrey Myrtlebank, I think the episode was titled. A guy woke up inside a coffin and became a new man that nobody recognized.

The scary thing was where the video became corrupted. It was the scene where the old guys were sitting around in the general store, gossiping about the guy that had just come back to life. The doctor talked about how he stuck pins in the corpse, held a mirror to the guy's mouth to see his breath, and then another guy from the town said, "Where could he have been those last forty eight hours? How do we know the man who crawled out of that coffin is really Jeff Myrtlebank?"

When asked to explain, the townie said, "My grandmother told stories about evil spirits roaming the world, trying to find a body to take over, steal a corpse before a man is good and dead."

The doctor replied, "You just threw kindling on a fire that's been smoldering in my brain ever since the funeral."

And that's when the video got garbled and wouldn't play anymore.

Ironically, that episode was followed by the one about the old man who trapped Satan in a dungeon. I remembered the scary image of the devil, dressed as Dracula, disappearing in a puff of smoke. Rod Sterling concluded the episode by saying, _"You can catch the devil, but you can't hold him long."_

I heard scratching sounds outside my compartment. I thought it could be some kind of machinery, but I had no way of telling for certain that it wasn't... _something else_. A shiver ran down my back. "You really think it's demonic? You don't think that maybe they're just, I don't know, _alien beings from the fourth dimension_ or something?"

"We know not where demons come from, nor where they go when they depart. What universe they inhabit is not nearly as important as the fact that they are making their presence felt. If what you say is true, they have some evil purpose in inhabiting the bodies of my offspring." Ernie folded her claws.

I groaned. _"So you're just going to pray."_

 _"Just!_ How can you ever hope to make a good decision without bringing it before the Lord?"

I rubbed my face in frustration, slumping on the aluminum sheeting of the compartment.

"I face a terrible dilemma. I have essentially been raped, and now have children I did not intend to birth. Worst, if what you say is correct, they are demonically possessed. More now than ever I need the Lord's aid."

After a moment's prayer, she muttered, "If and when I am released from my imprisonment, I shall have my work cut out for me, not only with exorcisms, but also with the daunting task of teaching my children the sanctity of human life."

 _"About that..._ Do you have a spaceship?"

"I once did, but misfortune struck me, and we no longer have access to it."

"Is it still here?"

Ernie shook her big head. "It seems a technical error sent the vehicle away from us to parts unknown."

I sighed. _"So we really have no way of getting out of here."_

"Not unless you count the theft of a human spacecraft as an option."

"Can you show me where one of those... _human spacecrafts_ can be found?"

"Newt, _stealing is a sin..._ "

"So is using live human beings as incubators."

"That doesn't-" she began, but I stopped her.

"I'm not stealing, I'm _commandeering_. Like how the Americans stole tanks from the Nazis in the Second World War. _It's to save lives."_

She purred. _"I see you have thought this through._ " But then she spread her arms, indicating her bulky body and large egg sac. _"Unfortunately..."_

"What are you saying? You're as useful as an asshole on my elbow?"

Ernie uttered a growl of annoyance. "Have you spoken to Ripley at all?"

"No, but she's _spoken of_ me." I suppressed a sob. "The mean bitch doesn't love me anymore. _She doesn't even know who I am!"_

I was doing the sneezing/crying thing. I couldn't help it.

"I wish I could reach up and hug you," Ernie said.

I had nothing to say to this. I just cried some more, until the crying jags stopped.

"Admittedly, she isn't the woman you once knew, but she _does_ care. Before we got captured, she was assisting me in your rescue. I suggest you speak to her again."

I sniffed, nodded. _"You think she's hiding something?"_

"I'm assuming so. She _is_ a clever woman."

I wasn't satisfied with that. "When..." I was about to say `The Bitch,' but offending Ernie would serve no purpose. "When _The Queen_ had all that stuff on her body, she still was able to chase me and Ripley. She just kinda... _pulled herself away._ "

 _"I know,"_ said Ernie. _"But doing that hurts!_ Honestly, considering how badly Ripley wounded her, I don't blame her for trying to kill you."

"You take that back!" I snarled.

The alien flinched. " _Newt._ I'm sorry. I meant no offense. I was merely trying to explain how painful it is to disengage such an apparatus. _You'll understand when you get older._ "

I shuddered to think of myself like that, sitting in a hive full of eggs that I personally laid, killing people... "So how the hell am I going to find a spaceship?"

 _"The same way you found me."_

"Ernie, there's a bunch of innocent people trapped in cryogenic stasis, and they're going to die if we don't do something!"

"What do you want me to do? I'm a prisoner here, presumably just like yourself."

I didn't have an immediate answer to that.

"Newt, don't kill my babies."

My stomach turned the moment my brain processed those words. I understood the emotion, but really didn't want to.

Gritting my teeth, I answered, "You don't understand what's at stake here. _If your babies get within a foot of the people I'm trying to save, they're dead._ "

Before she could utter a word of protest, I crawled away from there, frustrated and angry.

They used to screen people before allowing them to go into space. You had to be physically fit, mentally stable. I guess they wanted the bland perfection depicted in _Lost In Space_.

That was before private companies like Virgin and Google started offering _deals_ and _programs_. On certain projects, like stope mining, nobody cared how perfect you were. They just wanted, in the words of Johnny Cash, `A mind that's weak and a back that's strong.' Google Mining didn't care about such things as alcoholism or bipolar disorder, as long as you kept the quota going. Sure, they paid lip service to it, but in reality they didn't do shit.

Dad was drilling for Google when he met Mom. At the time Mom was working at Laundry Services. I don't know how they got free from their indentured servitude, but they did somehow, and they had me.

This is all to explain why, as a human girl, I once threw a `temper tantrum' and clawed at my own face. I don't remember the particulars of the incident, just the fact that I cried and hurt myself. Maybe it was because I didn't want to go to school, I don't know.

Mom and dad took me to Mental Health Services. I remember playing with a dollhouse as a doctor spoke to me, maybe that same Winnie the Pooh playset I mentioned earlier. It probably cost Mom and Dad a fair amount of money, but I didn't really think about the economics at the time.

The memory flashed through my mind when the soldiers dragged me screaming back to my cage.

I had found the frozen human beings, successfully thawing three of them out, but they were scared of me. One woman ran and hit her head on an overhanging wall fixture.

They weren't doing so great. After being in cold storage so long, they shivered, puked out fluids, couldn't even keep balance or see where they were going.

I never experienced such joys. Still anything would have been preferable to _this_.

By the time I had the people awake, and convinced that I wasn't a threat, the people in charge had already sent their security agents swarming after me.

I fought them, ran to a loading dock where they inventoried shipments on a computer, then got stopped in the middle of a metal frame staircase.

I saw an X-Men comic one time where Magneto was trying to assemble a 3-D map of something with his mutant powers, but he kept screwing up and blew the model to pieces. I think of that every time I put together the snowflake puzzle.

That, and all those episodes of NCIS the scientists beamed into my cell, the ones where Gibbs builds and builds and builds a boat in his basement, then just destroys it to start all over again. Maybe I subconsciously didn't want to solve the snowflake puzzle. Really, it's a metaphor for what's going on in my brain. I have most the pieces, but they no longer fit together.

A long time ago, I asked Claudia, "Have you ever had problems remembering stuff?"

"All the time," she said.

"How did you bring something back when it's lost?"

She gave me a shrug. "I don't know."

Then, after a thoughtful pause, "Have you ever heard of the _Memory Palace_ theory?"

"No?"

She told me that it's a mnemonic trick. You create a place inside your mind, like the level of a video game or something, and you place all the stuff you want to remember in strategic locations so you can pull them up later.

She told me about how characters in the _Sherlock_ television show often used memory palaces, how one villain could just sit in an empty room, dig through his imaginary file cabinet, and bring up scandalous material on anyone he liked. She mentioned Hannibal Lecter's memory palace and the `Memory Warehouse' of Stephen King's _Dreamcatcher_.

At the time, I filed all of this under the `Bullshit section of my memory warehouse', but later I began to experiment with it. I'd make jokes with Claudia about going into my memory palace.

No. That's not right. She wasn't the one who told me.

But if it wasn't her, _who did_ , dammit?

No matter. I am constructing a timeline.

In my memory palace, there is a classroom from Hadley's Hope. It has a markerboard...no, a _talc board_ , because we couldn't afford to keep shipping in markers and chalk all the time. A talc board has a special surface that picks up dust. You scratch anything you want into the surface with a stylus, then erase it all by simply dumping a layer of dust over the whole thing like an Etch-A-Sketch.

On the talc board, I wrote down my personal history, from birth to present, connecting it, the best I can, in a straight line. Every day I try to put a new detail on it, try to fill in the holes.

So many damned gaps.

So far I've been able to use my memory palace to recover my birth certificate and social security number. I keep both documents in the top drawer of Mrs. Davis' desk. Thanks to those little details, the scientists know exactly who I am, even if they don't believe it.

There's also a computer on the desk containing the names of most of my classmates, but most the entries are nothing more than names, a face here and there, but by and large blank files. I'm still working to recover the data.

I'M SORRY THINGS DID NOT WORK OUT STOP I HAD HOPED THAT YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO TAKE THOSE HUMANS TO SAFETY

I could read Big Bird's messages without the card now. _"Not as sorry as those poor people are going to be!"_

Immediately after my capture, General Perez had made a special trip to my cell. His sharp words, delivered in his distinct Bronx accent, still echoed in my mind. "Are you deliberately trying to piss me off, Becky?" He yelled. "`Cuz it's working! You know how much (G.D.) money I spent getting those human popsicles over here in the first place? You got _three guys_ all woke up and whining about how they've been kidnapped, and I got to calm the motherfuckers down! I _was_ just going to keep them on ice until the impregnations began, but now _I got to feed them_ , provide them with accommodations, and, most importantly, _keep them from calling the (G.D.) authorities!_ Now how do you think that makes me feel?"

"Who gives a shit?" I muttered.

He glared at me. _"What did you say?"_

"I said _fuck you._ "

Perez held a hand to his ear, feigning deafness. _"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that._ "

I slowly extended my middle claw.

Perez retaliated by blasting me with liquid nitrogen. "Fuck with me again, alien bitch, and I'll use your (G.D.) head for an ashtray." He stormed out of the room.

While I thought about this little incident, Big Bird had been sending me messages. Messages I'd ignored. "I'm sorry, what?"

WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT?

"General Perez is an asshole. I know it's wrong, but I just want to-" I distended my jaw, making my mouth claw pop out like I were cracking the man's skull open.

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. WOULD DESTROYING GENERAL PEREZ NOT SAVE MANY LIVES?

"No, not with all those other guys carrying out his work."

I SEE

The security door to my cell suddenly clicked open, and in rushed Claudia.

"Oh God oh God oh God!" she cried, shoving the door closed behind her.

Once certain that the cell had been locked all the way, she turned around, back pressed against the metal.

She stared at me, pale, breaking into a cold sweat. "Oh God, Oh Jesus," she muttered under her breath.

The woman slowly raised a trembling hand, giving me a nervous wave. "Hi. Mind if I stay here for awhile?"

A second later, I heard somebody screaming. Blood splashed across the viewing window.

"Oh Jesus," Claudia cried, squatting low to the floor. "Oh God." It sounded almost like a prayer.

Maybe it was.


	11. Chapter 15: Sky Is A Neighborhood

The disheveled cowering mess I saw before me scarcely resembled the arrogant hard nosed bureaucrat (I'd call her something else, but the B word has been thrown about too much already) that had been torturing me with nitro days before. Her gray jumpsuit was ripped and tattered, her hair and face caked with blood, claw marks running up and down her exposed flesh.

"You shouldn't be in here," I said. "It's not safe." 

Claudia whimpered, gave me a nod.

"I could kill you sixteen different ways."

 _"I know, but I trust you."_

I purred in amusement. _"You. Trust me."_

She swallowed. _"A lot more than those things out there!"_

I gawked at her, not believing what I was hearing.

"Look...I've been watching you for months. You're a good... _kid._ You're cooperative, _hell of a lot friendlier than the others...I think you sincerely care about human beings!_ "

I shoved her into the wall, distending my jaw as I slowly made my mouth claw pop out. _"You thought wrong!"_

Claudia whimpered, turned her head to the side. The lower part of her jumpsuit darkened.

I wrinkled my face in disgust. "Oh my God, did you just pee?"

Claudia reddened. _"No?_ "

"You _did_ pee," I laughed.

"So what if I did! You just scared the shit out of me!"

This made me laugh more. _"Did you do that too?"_

Her face turned a complete scarlet. "Are you going to help, or are you just going to stand there and make fun of me?"

"What do you want _me_ to do?"

"You can start by killing _that thing_ in the lab!" she shouted.

I didn't much like aliens, but I disliked being bossed around even less, especially by her. _"They're called_ _Ss'sik'chtokiwij."_

"Okay! _Shishkabatawaj_ , whatever! Please! Can you help me?"

I sighed. Since my escape, they had changed the lock and posted a guard outside my door. Although certain the guard was out of the picture... "It depends. _Can you open the cell?_ "

The door had a fingerprint scanner and a virtual keypad. Not the most sophisticated or efficient security device, but enough to keep me inside. Claudia had to move her index finger up and down on it several times before it read properly and unlocked the door.

"Stay here," I warned as the door opened.

Claudia let out a bitter laugh. _"You think I'd actually go out with all that shit going on?"_

I thought about saying something smart about her not putting her neck on the line for anyone, but I had to admit she was the weaker species.

The moment the door swung open all the way, the lights dimmed, and a man in an astronaut flight suit grabbed me by the throat, choking me.

I don't know how it happened, but I was a little girl again. He had me off the floor with my feet kicking in the air. I clawed at his hands, desperately trying to fight him off, but he was far too strong.

I attempted to jab him in the eyes, but he didn't seem to have any. My nails only hit skin and bone. "Stop! I'm just a little girl!"

The man only gritted his teeth, tightening his grip around my neck.

I kicked him in the crotch. I thought he would double over, but my shoe collided with something inorganic.

When the lights flickered again, I saw a Ss'sik'chtokiwij the same size as me squeezing my chitinous neck. My enemy was still strong, but a punch to the face sent her reeling backwards.

My victory only lasted a moment.

My attacker resumed the form of a man, me as a little girl. He choked me. I clawed at his face.

Claudia tried to run past him, I guess to lock us both in the chamber and freeze us to death, but the stranger waved his hand like he were using The Force, and Claudia hit her head on the wall. She was out like a light after that.

 _You stupid girl,_ said a voice in my head. _You don't know who you're fucking with_.

I opened my mouth, willing the muscle groups responsible for moving my tongue claw to operate.

Despite being in a child's body, the stranger didn't appreciate...whatever I had projectile vomited into the space between our heads. He smashed me in the face and kicked me.

I rolled over to shield myself from the attack, and found my claw bumping into a strange little object.

White.

Wooden.

It was the snowflake puzzle, completely assembled!

No time to wonder who or how. I threw the object in my attacker's face, causing it to explode into pieces.

My assailant stumbled backwards, appearing to be somehow blinded by the weapon. In fact, his form reverted to Ss'sik'chtokiwij, of equal size to me. Don't ask me why.

I screamed, coming after him (actually _her_ at the moment) with a football charge.

I knocked the beast through the doorway, tackling her to the floor, wherein I commenced to wail upon her with my fists.

The door to my cell clicked shut behind me. At first it kinda pissed me off, you know, thinking that Claudia didn't really trust me enough, but I later understood that was what I wanted to begin with, that I would have locked her in there myself, to prevent her from getting killed.

Also, I would have realized that she had been knocked unconscious, physically unable to close the door.

One time as a child, I had the fever, and as I lay in bed, drenching my clothes and pillows and blankets in sweat, one song kept running through my mind: _The Sky is a Neighborhood_ by the Foo Fighters, mingled with a similar oldies tune, _Share the Land_ by The Who. It has become my Sick Song. Now, under the grips of this... _thing's_ power, I heard it again.

When my fist struck my enemy's face again, I found myself looking down at the bloodied face of Ms. Turley.

"Rebecca!" the woman shouted. "What the hell is wrong with you!"

"You're not real!" I shouted, clenching my girl fists. "You're dead!"

"Rebecca, _get off me._ "

"No! This is a trick!"

 _"Why would this be a trick?"_ Miss Turley looked genuinely puzzled, and even worried for me. "Rebecca, _you're not well._ _You need to see a doctor._ "

It was the same thing my art teacher said to me when I chased her around with a pair of scissors. I don't know why I did that then, and it got me worried about my sanity now. I backed away from her, horrified at myself.

"Ms. Turley, everyone from Hadley's Hope is dead. Why are you still alive?"

The woman knelt beside me. "The reason is very simple..."

She grabbed me by the neck, and her voice became like a man's. _"So I can kill you!_ "

The woman lifted me to my feet, shoving me through a glass tank.

I'd been thrown through one of those facehugger tanks. When the glass shattered, liquid sprayed everywhere, and the creature inside went scurrying across the floor like Thing from _The Addams Family_.

At this point, I had come to the understanding that maybe my enemy was pulling a whammy on me, tricking me into believing I was not an alien to get the upper hand. It wasn't hard to do, because I never truly accepted my new self for what it was.

I stabbed my enemy with a shard of glass. It stuck in her head, but didn't seem to phase her. She kept hitting me.

I jabbed her with a pair of scissors. The only trouble was, they were the angled blunt edged surgical type, so they only bounced off her head. In return the alien throttled me again.

A can of Doctor Pepper stood on a shelf next to the scissors. For some miraculous reason, it had not fallen to the floor with the calculators, papers and the rest of the junk that had been piled there.

Aiming to induce vomiting, or at least distract my foe, I gave the can a vigorous shake, ramming it into a mouth that had already been opening to head-bite me with its claw.

The can exploded, causing her to angrily gurgle and lunge for me as she foamed like a mad dog. She _did_ spew a little.

Another pair of scissors lay nearby, a sharp pointy pair with black steel handles.

The moment my claws closed around them, they turned into the red plastic handled ones I'd chased Mrs. Davis around with years ago. I dropped the scissors in shock.

My attacker kicked them under a shelf.

That damn song kept running through my head: _Oh my dear heaven is a big band now, got to get to sleep somehow...Did you pay your dues, did you read the news, this morning when the paper landed in your yard?_

My attacker became a man, but I was ready for him. I picked up a recycle bin and shoved it over his head.

Obviously, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij head isn't the right shape to fit into such a bin all the way, so, when I had a flash of clarity, I noticed I had, in fact, stuck it over her face.

I punched her hard in the stomach, then ran behind the shelf, grabbing the scissors. Along the way I spotted a Bunsen Burner, along with one of those metal cup things that you click to make sparks.

When my enemy had removed the waste can from her face, I turned on the gas to the burner, igniting the end with the sparker.

The flame wasn't that impressive. My enemy hurled me into a tank, cracking the glass. I stabbed her with the scissors, using the momentum of the attack to push her away from me.

She grabbed a scalpel ramming it through my chest. I don't know what she hit, but it hurt like hell.

The moment I dislodged the weapon, she grabbed one of my exposed brain probes, ripping it out of my skull. Steaming blood gushed onto the floor, melting holes in the metal.

For a moment, everything got all funny looking and brightly lit like a _Finneas and Ferb_ cartoon. I'd see flashes of my enemy as a walking mound of dripping paint.

 _...Gotta get to sleep somehow, banging on the ceiling, banging on the ceiling, keep it down...d_ _o you know their names, can you play their games, without losing track and coming down a bit too hard?_

My attacker knocked me into a shelf and beat me, lifted me off my feet and shoved me through another glass tank.

Hand sanitizer has a flash point of less than one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I mention this because Bruno was germ conscious enough to keep a gallon jug of the stuff on his shelves.

Although I still saw everything as a brightly colored cartoon show with a soundtrack ( _Oh my dear, heaven is a big band now..._ ) I was used to being in the wrong skin, the wrong life. Disorientation had ceased to be a novelty.

I ripped the top off the sanitizer, flung the clear glop in my attacker's face, then set it ablaze with the Bunsen Burner. She went up like a Roman candle.

Of course you know the station had automatic fire prevention systems in place. The moment the Ss'sik'chtokiwij became Johnny the Human Torch, the sprinklers came on, creating a miniature rainstorm.

 _...Gotta get to sleep somehow, banging on the ceiling...Maybe I'll be there to shake your hand, maybe I'll be there to share the land, that they'll be giving away when we all live together..._

I was woozy. My hands and body, from the distorted vantage point of my brain, now resembled something out of a weird _Ducktales_ episode. I needed to get away from this guy, hide until my neurons, synapses, or whatever I had misfiring started firing right.

 _Shake your hand..._

 _Share the land..._

 _Gotta get to sleep somehow..._

I tripped over that stupid rag that Ernie sewed together.

I picked it up, burst into mad giggles.

"Oh my God!" I laughed. " _You're on fire! Let me help you!_ "

I threw the quilt over my enemy's head, forced him to the floor, and beat the hell out of him.

It began as a joke, but I actually had a lot of pent-up rage that I'd been holding in for _days_ , maybe even _years_.

I struck her for killing me (by proxy), for Ripley, for the Space Marines, for all those people who died on LV 426.

And then, somewhere in all that, I beat her the way Dad sometimes would get drunk and hit me.

I probably would have kept on beating her until she turned into a steaming pile of goop, but then I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.

It was the face hugger.

It seemed it was confused about why a Ss'sik'chtokiwij would so be so wantonly abusive to its own.

I purred, tickled by the most bizarre misfiring of neurons that had ever struck my brain.

Before the egg laying arachnid could scamper away, I yanked it up by its tail, dangling it over my enemy's prone form.

I ripped the quilt away with one hand, and before my enemy could raise her claws in protest, I smashed the facehugger down over her mouth, looping its tail tightly around her neck.

"There!" I shouted. _"How's it feel to get a taste of your own medicine!"_

As you can probably guess, neither party appreciated the intrusion of the other. My enemy's mouth claw shot through the facehugger's back, spraying caustic blood all over the floor.

I thought for a minute that my egg layer was down for the count, but male praying mantises and black widow spiders tend to keep having sex even after their heads have been removed.

The milky pink socmavaj coiled its tail tighter, squeezing the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's face with its spider legs as it forcefully unburdened itself of its goopy cargo. The alien thrashed and made gurgling sounds as an egg shot down its trachea.

Socmavaj naturally die after they deposit their eggs. Their victims get to live a few hours, maybe days before the egg hatches.

You can imagine how pissed my enemy was when she got back up from the floor.


	12. Chapter 16: Ssunamrozedrah

The owner of the splattered blood on the window had been a soldier. I saw his corpse sprawled beside Bruno's futon. The soldier owned a smart gun, one of those pistols that can only be fired if you pull the trigger while wearing a special wristwatch. I knew this because I spotted it on the floor, tried to use it, fully loaded, and it absolutely refused to fire.

The alien knocked the weapon out of my hand, sending it skittering across the floor.

She picked up a wheeled office chair, knocked me to the floor with it.

My foe, with teeth curled in a nasty grin, raised the chair above her head, prepared to bash my head in with the heavy lower portion.

Mara wasn't the only one with a cleaning job on that station. There were duct cleaning drones and Roomba type things to scrub and polish the floor. The one next to my head was frozen in place, frantically locking its moisture seals as if it faced a mere tipped water cooler or some minor plumbing incident instead of an alien body.

I picked up the machine, hurled it at my attacker, then jumped to my feet, grabbing a computer by its cord.

I had intended to use it as sort of a bolo, but the damn CPU fell off the moment I gave the cord a good whirl. I had to make do with the cord itself, flogging the Ss'sik'chtokiwij until she backed away from me.

She picked up one of those fancy `wind tunnel' wet/dry vacuums, swinging it at me like a club.

Trying to avoid the weapon, I snapped my cord at her, but then it got caught on the vacuum's neck.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij snatched the end, yanked hard, threw me into the chemicals cabinet.

My enemy clubbed me with the vacuum until the pieces broke off on my shell. The force of the attack knocked my body into the cabinet handles, causing them to snap off and pop the doors open.

I reached for the first weapon-like object I could find within those thick aluminum doors, a clear flask labeled `high potency bleach.' I really didn't care what it said, I just broke the thing over the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's head and hoped for the best.

I never did very well in science class, any class really. Imagine my astonishment when I saw my enemy's head bubbling up like Alka-Seltzer. This was Mr. Wizard type stuff!

Aliens ooze all sorts of caustic acidic substances. Bleach, especially in its concentrated form, is an extremely powerful base.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij clawed blindly at me, snapped her mouth claw.

Not wanting to take chances, I snatched some random hypodermic syringes out of a cold case, injecting my foe with... _whatever it was the chambers contained._

The needles, being ordinary metal, melted off the moment I stuck them in, but the wounds I created were already open and prone to infection, so it didn't matter. The syringes still splashed the contents into my victim's bloodstream.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked, clutched her head as she foamed at the mouth, fell to the floor in convulsions.

Not content to merely stand around and watch her get back up, I picked up the gun, searching the dead soldier for the activator.

The vic was bald, pasty white, and appeared to be wearing a girl's military uniform. He had eye makeup and purple lipstick...I'm not really sure what his story was, but I guess it didn't matter - he was gone.

I found the activator around his wrist, a wrist the alien had severed from his body and thrown to the floor.

During the course of my long imprisonment, the scientists showed me military documentaries. I saw programs on World War II, and stuff about the various types of guns used by the police and military. I think the people in charge _actually did_ want me to use weapons at some point, provided I was killing their political opponent and not them. And, if worst came to worst, I could always lay them an egg.

Anyway, thanks to the segment on Smart Guns, I knew exactly what to do. I peeled the device off the dead limb, strapped it around my wrist, and aimed at a facehugger in a tank, to see if the gun worked.

The tank shattered, but I failed to hit the mark.

While it fell to the floor dead like I had shot it, when I came closer I saw no holes in it.

With clenched teeth, I drew close to my fallen enemy to guarantee a direct hit, no matter how wildly the gun bucked.

The moment I had the muzzle pointed at her head, the door to the lab slid open, and a Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a chitinous Mohawk rushed in, aiming a pistol at _me_. "Put the weapon down!"

I stared at the gun wielding creature with unease. So far, other than Ernie, I had met only one alien smart enough to talk and use human tools, and this stranger wasn't Lacy.

I kept my gun right where it was, aimed at the convulsing Ss'sik'chtokiwij's head. "Who the hell are you?"

"I am Ssunamrozedrah, cousin of Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik."

"So you're Ernie's relative." I frowned. "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told her. Keep your family away from people, or I give this lab another cadaver to dissect."

"Put the weapon down," Ssunamrozedrah insisted.

Hissandra, I thought. Regardless of what it says, this thing's name is Hissandra. She...tried to kill me once. Killed...a bunch of my school friends too.

But then I thought, No, wait. The smell... _she is a daughter!_

My olfactory sense processed all of this before my brain did. It actually made me hate her more. "No."

The Mohawked one clicked back the hammer of her gun. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik wants you alive, but she also told me to do whatever it takes to save her children. Let her daughter go, Great Aunt. I won't ask again."

Great Aunt? I wondered. Why is she calling me that?

I decided I didn't care. I cocked back the hammer of my own weapon. "I've died once already. I'm not afraid to do it again."

"There doesn't have to be bloodshed. Please. Leave the room and let me tend to the young one's injuries."

"Over my dead body."

 _"As you wish,"_ the alien sighed.

I had been pointing my gun at the victim on the floor, but the moment I heard Ms. Mohawk's pronouncement, I knew where this was going.

I whipped the pistol her way and fired four times.

The moment I opened fire, Ssunamrozedrah shot me in the shoulder, I guess to disarm rather than kill me. She seemed to be a practiced shot, so maybe she intended to keep both me and my injured foe alive.

I, on the other hand, had no such intentions. Although three out of four of my shots were off target, I actually hit Ms. Mohawk, forcing her to duck into the hallway.

I stepped on my victim's chest, pressed the barrel to her head, pulled the trigger.

Click. Nothing happened.

"Mother?" the creature said. "What are you doing?"

A cold shiver rolled down my back. "Who are you pretending to be now? _A child?_ Sell your bullshit somewhere else. I'm not buying it."

A bullet struck me in the side. I fell to the floor.

A moment later, Mara ran in, jolting me with a cattle prod.

As the android wrenched the gun out of my claws, Ssunamrozedrah hurried to the fallen Ss'sik'chtokiwij's side, examining her injuries.

" _Zailunlira_!" she cried (which I guess is an alien swear word), turning her face to me with an expression of horror. "You put a socmavaj over her mouth? What is wrong with you!"

I was too busy clawing at the robot to reply, trying to get my weapon back. Mara slung a shock collar around my neck and jolted me until I stopped struggling.

" _An egg? In a_ _Ss'sik'chtokiwij_ _?_ This is _depraved!_ What possessed you to do such a horrible thing!"

 _"Oh, so only human beings get to experience the pleasure of having their rib cages torn open by a flesh eating parasite? Fuck you! If I had another one of those things, I'd put it over_ your mouth _too!"_

Mara shocked me again. " _Language_ , young lady! Didn't your mother teach you not to curse?"

"My mother's dead."

"That's no excuse. You dishonor her memory. At any rate, _what am I exactly?"_

"You're an android."

"That's _synthetic human_ , young lady, _and you accepted me as your mother._ I expect you to treat me like one!"

"I was protecting Claudia. Unlike your friend, I care about _people_."

Mara frowned, but Ssunamrozedrah said nothing in protest. She was too busy attending to my victim, pulling the glass shards out of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's head, and the wounds bled freely.

The impregnated Ss'sik'chtokiwij had stopped convulsing, but now frequently coughed and shivered like she had the flu or something. "Mother?"

Ssunamrozedrah stroked an uninjured portion of the victim's head. "Your mother is not here, but she loves you very much, and wants to see you." The creature had no visible eyes, but I could feel her disapproving glare as her face briefly turned my way.

"She tried to kill me," I said. "I wouldn't trust her. She may act like a normal alien, but there's something evil in her, and it's powerful."

Ssunamrozedrah's expression grew contemplative as she stared at me for a moment. "Regardless of whether or not this is true, I also do not fear death."

 _"I'm going to die, aren't I?"_ said the creature on the floor.

Ssunamrozedrah turned her attention back to the victim. "Sadly, I do not see any other possible outcome."

"Then name me. I wish to have a name before death takes me."

Overwhelmed with emotion, Ssunamrozedrah sneezed. "Very well, young one. I name you Opvossu-Sarah, for Opvossu means beautiful, and Sarah was the name of your mother's best friend."

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij suddenly let out an agonized shriek, back arched in apparent pain.

"What troubles you, young one?" Ssunamrozedrah asked. "The egg?"

Opvossu-Sarah grabbed the other alien around the throat, her voice becoming like a human man. _"This body is mine!"_

"You can have it," I said. "An egg is going to hatch in your lung."

The creature snarled, then gave me a nasty grin. _"How delicious! I shall absorb the essences of two lifeforms for the price of one!"_

Wincing like she were fighting a heavy weight, Opvossu-Sarah bared her teeth. _"Help me!"_

 _"Me?"_ I cried. "What the hell do you want _me_ to do? _You're already half dead!"_

"Share minds with her," Ssunamrozedrah suggested. "It is how aunt Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik always solves her problems."

"What? No! Even if she hadn't just thrown up and gotten a bleach mouthwash, _she's got an egg in her throat! You want that thing in_ my _throat?"_

Ssunamrozedrah balled her claws into fists. _"Yes."_

"Fuck you."

 _"Now now,"_ Mara scolded. _"Language."_ The android had been examining my wounds as I watched them, cauterizing parts with a laser she'd been carrying in her pocket. "Incidentally, you are fortunate you have acidic blood. The bullets cannot stay lodged in your body long enough to cause infection."

"Yes," I groaned. _"But I can still bleed to death, right? I mean, it's not exactly good to have molten metal compounds floating around in my body..."_

"I shot you in a non-vital location," said Ssunamrozedrah. "Your mother would never forgive me if I killed you."

"You don't know my mother," I growled. "I don't know who you think I am, but it's too late for her to worry about me. I'm already dead."

"Your mother is Shasharmazorb. _The Queen._ "

"You mean _that thing_ that laid all those eggs and killed everyone on the base? _That's_ who you think my mother is?"

"I know my great grandmother's scent. _You are her child._ "

"No!" I whimpered, holding my claws to the sides of my head. "The Bitch is not my mother! My mother is _Anne Jorden!_ A _human!_ "

 _"Have you looked in the mirror lately?"_

I shot her a sullen glare, but couldn't argue.

Opvossu-Sarah turned her head toward me, grinning madly. "The little girl is dead. You were never her. You're just a Ss'sik'chtokiwij who thinks she was once human."

"You shut the hell up!" I yelled.

"Mara," said Ssunamrozedrah. "Can you tell me anything about this young Ss'sik'chtokiwij's behavior?"

The android froze. "Your relative is having a psychological disturbance."

Opvossu-Sarah's grin widened. "Ha ha ha!"

She tried to get up, but Ssunamrozedrah kept her pressed against the floor. _"Do I need to cocoon you?"_

And then Ssunamrozedrah was looking at me again.

With a surprising amount of strength, Opvossu-Sarah grabbed the xenomorph holding her down, hurling her over a desk. Books and papers fell off. A glass paperweight shattered on the floor.

Opvossu-Sarah leapt to her feet, popping her neck as she marched up to me, determined to get revenge.

She leapt, knocking me backwards into a wall.

The alien growled, distended her jaw.

I thought she was going to somehow regurgitate the egg into my throat, but instead her mouth worms came out. I tried to fight back, but she was stronger, forcing my mouth open. She was laughing.

A cloud of black smoke exploded in my vision, filled my mouth with a taste like moldy bread, rotten bell peppers and other foods past their expiration date. That was when I knew that the shadow was quitting its host body and trying to take over mine.

My head got swimmy, and I found myself...somewhere else.

It resembled an Aztec temple, chiseled out of limestone, but without the ordinary Quetzalcoatl or god images. Instead I saw arcane symbols, and man figures resembling the shadows. The carvings of skulls had weird elongated shapes, some of them like xenomorphs.

As I traveled down a corridor, I came across tall statues of half naked warriors bearing weapons. The statues had no faces, but as torchlight from sconces flickered across their crumbling forms, I could almost swear I could see the faint outlines of what used to be there, faces that glared malevolently at me from above.

The light diminished a few yards down the tunnel, the torches making the statues ahead of me seem alive in moving. When I glanced back, I saw only darkness, as if everything was closing in on me.

I heard a shriek. "Help me!" the voice echoed down the tunnel, reverberated through my skull. A chill ran down my back.

Fearing it to be some creature of darkness trying to drag me into hell, I said nothing, considered turning back.

Maybe I'm already in hell, I thought to myself. Maybe this is what I get.

I deserve this.

"Help!" the voice cried again. "I know you're there!"

"It's too late," I answered. "You can't escape hell."

The voice must have understood the concept, for it answered, "But I'm not dead!...And neither are you!"

I swallowed. _"I don't know if that's true."_

"I don't believe that. I believe you can help me."

"No. I don't think I can."

I got silence in response.

I probably would have stayed there and accepted my fate, but then _my brother appeared and spoke to me_. "Help her."

"Timmy!" I cried. "I knew you could talk! Why are you in hell? Why didn't you-?"

He vanished.

"Please help us!" the voice cried again. "We can't fight them off by ourselves!

 _We?_ I thought. "If this is who I think it is, I just dropped an egg down your trachea! Forgive me if I don't drop everything and come running like an idiot!"

"I understand why you did it. I wasn't in control of my body, you were just defending yourself."

"Yeah. _Impregnating your body was just self defense."_

The voice went silent for a moment. Then, "Please help me."

 _"Don't kill my babies,"_ Ernie had told me. I wanted to ignore it, let this alien die. She deserved it, for attacking me and humans like Claudia. I wanted to get that revenge against the alien that killed my human body, because, deep down, I _really hadn't_ forgiven anyone. But every time I tried to make myself cold and hardened against Ernie Junior, that statement hit me again. _"Don't kill my babies."_ Honestly, in my heart, I harbored a secret love for Ernie, and turning my back on Opvossu made my stomach churn. I hated myself for it, but...

I sighed in frustration. _"Where are you?"_

 _"Down. Below you."_

 _"That's helpful."_

The corridor ended in a darkened stairwell, the torchlight becoming progressively more feeble as I went along.

I marched down the steps, which curved around into an inky black pit.

Hearing another shriek, I turned my head and saw an exhausted looking larva making pathetic attempts to claw and wiggle out of a mass of dark bodies that constantly grabbed at her, trying to pull her under.

I saw no way to reach her. The moment I neared the end of the steps, a pair of black hands reached for me, forcing a retreat.

"The egg!" said the larva. "Get the egg!"

 _"It's in_ your _throat._ In fact, I don't know how you're even breathing right now."

"No. _Look beside you!"_

Indeed, I saw a glowing thing, like a bowling ball, amidst the reaching hands.

Kicking and clawing at the dark faceless bodies, I snatched the shining orb from the shadows, clutching it to my chest.

I leapt back to the stairs. "Now what?"

The larva only shrieked and went under.

And then the shadows closed in on _me_.

I retreated up the stairs, but the darkness came down from that direction too.

As a reflex, I retreated further - _from the world,_ entering my mind palace.

In my distressed state, I didn't conjure much, just a door that I rushed through and slammed shut, then a concrete gray cube containing nothing but a desk.

A gold bible lay on its surface. I scowled at it in dismay, wishing I had something more useful, like a flame thrower or a hand grenade.

Honestly, I don't know why my mind had come up with it at all. With trembling claws, I picked it up, wondering if I could somehow use it to bludgeon my foes to death, or use it to ride over their heads...maybe read it out loud and put them to sleep?

The book glowed and elongated, changing into a samurai sword that emitted green light as if radioactive.

I set the egg on the desk, giving the weapon a few flashy twirls.

"Stay here. I'll get your, uh... _sister._ "

I rushed back out, sealing the door with a computerized lock that required you to identify pictures of cars (and click on images of buses and trucks that have been misidentified as cars) or solve the snowflake puzzle.

I swung my sword at the darkness, revealing more and more of the floor and other architectural features with every slice. The weapon blazed brighter when near my enemy, like that sword on _The Hobbit,_ and when it touched the shadow men, it fried them to ash.

I hacked my way forward. Up ahead, I could see the mound of reaching hands that held the Ss'sik'chtokiwij captive.

Chop, slash, stab. At some point, I must have gotten carried away, for then I found the blade buried up to the hilt in the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's body. It shrieked in agony, and the whole place started falling apart, even that security door I'd locked.

The shadowy chamber filled with blinding light, like someone had set off explosives. I saw nothing but white.

When my vision cleared, I once again lay on the laboratory floor.

I thought I saw something like a dark cloud explode out of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's body, then dissipate into the air.

Opvossu-Sarah let out an angry noise and slumped in my arms, breathing as well as could be expected with multiple injuries and an egg lodged in her body. "What just happened?"

"I...don't know. _I saved you, I guess._ "

 _"I told you that wasn't hell."_ She smiled. "Thank you."

The... _whatever it was_ prompted a temporary armistice as Mara tended our injuries. Mara released me from the collar, due to my improved behavior. I sat up and let her work on me.

Opvossu-Sarah was obviously worse off, and suffering from an unknown disease I'd created when I randomly stabbed her with syringes. Mara tended the injuries, but when she read the labels, she took one look at the Ss'sik'chtokiwij and shook her head. "Even if I had sufficient data about how those diseases affect Ss'sik'chtokiwij physiology, there are no known cures to what you've been infected with."

"I acted in self defense," I said.

I could tell by the others' expressions that my excuse didn't fly so well.

I thought for a moment, let out a deep sigh. "Look. I don't know what's going on, or what you think of me, but I have a _human_ I'm trying to protect, and I can't protect her with you and... _`Beautiful Sarah'_ hanging around. You need to leave this lab."

They didn't move.

 _"Now."_

"I don't take orders from you," Ssunamrozedrah growled.

I grabbed the shock collar, ramming it into the android's neck. "Sorry, _mom!"_ I pushed the button and she fell over like a destabilized department store mannequin.

I checked the chambers of the gun. Upon finding a bullet still inside, I aimed it at Ssunamrozedrah, pulling back the hammer. "Look. I don't want to kill your friend. _I just rescued her. But I can't trust her with humans!_ Your friend may not be possessed, _but she's a Ss'sik'chtokiwij._ I will not let one of you near my people!"

 _"And what are you?"_ Ssunamrozedrah said in a cold tone.

The question caught me off guard. _What was I?_ Could I even be trusted with a human, or was I the fox guarding the metaphorical hen house?

I couldn't afford to think like that. "You never mind who I am. _I know who I was!_ The people on this station have one hope of surviving your kind, and it's _me._ _They trust me_. If you want them to trust you too, I suggest you stay the fuck out of my way, and get the hell out of here with your so-called family. I _will_ kill if necessary"

Ssunamrozedrah answered with an angry growl. " _I'd like to see you try._ You are weak and suffering from delusions."

She let that statement hang in the air a moment. "Being as you don't recognize your own family, I _will_ leave you, _for_ _Opvossu-Sarah's protection."_

Her claw clamped around my gun wielding hand, crushing it in her grip. _"You stay the hell out of_ my _way._ You try to kill my family again, and you'll regret it!"

With that, she threw the gun to the floor.

As I rushed to grab the weapon, she signaled to Opvossu-Sarah, and the two of them left before I could shoot anyone.

The moment they were gone, the door to my cell hissed open, and Claudia stepped out to meet me. "Did I miss anything?"

I told her about the situation with Ssunamrozedrah and Opvossu. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe the part about the shadow demons. "So there are two of those things running around right now, and one of them is injured."

"Not just injured. _Dying._ She's got an egg about to hatch in her chest cavity."

"Good job." She offered her palm, soliciting a high five.

I slapped it with my claw, but half heartedly.

This Claudia misunderstood. " _It's okay!"_ She gave me a smile. "So you let one get away. _Can't win `em all._ "

I shook my head and sighed. "How many more of those things got out?"

"Dunno," she said. _"All of them?"_

I frowned at the empty chambers of my Smart Pistol. "Where are your guns?"

[0000]

* * *

Author's note: My original intent was to make this part of the story like _The Exorcist_ , but I got complaints about it being too religious (probably because the devil didn't win), so I made some revisions. The original portion can still be read in the alternate plot below.

* * *

[0000]

Overwhelmed with emotion, Ssunamrozedrah sneezed. "Very well, young one. I name you Opvossu-Jesus, for Opvossu means beautiful, and Jesus is the name of your mother's deity-"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij suddenly let out an agonized shriek, back arched in apparent pain.

"What troubles you, young one?" Ssunamrozedrah asked. "The egg?"

Opvossu-Jesus grabbed her around the throat, her voice becoming like a human man. "You who join the Yaotija and murder your own race name me after _a thing that humans kill each other for, a thing you don't even understand! Take it back and give me another befitting a_ _Ss'sik'chtokiwij_ _!"_

With difficulty, Ssunamrozedrah forced Opvossu-Jesus's claws away, pressing her arms to the floor. "I will not! Opvossu-Jesus is the name I have given, and you will accept this! I may not understand what is happening, but if the evil dwelling within you despises it, it must have some power."

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked louder.

Mara had been examining my wounds as I watched them, cauterizing parts with a laser she'd been carrying in her pocket. "You are fortunate you have acidic blood. The bullets cannot stay lodged in your body long enough to cause infection."

"Yes," I groaned. _"But I can still bleed to death, right? I mean, it's not exactly good to have molten metal compounds floating around in my body..."_

"I shot you in a non-vital location," said Ssunamrozedrah. "Your mother would never forgive me if I killed you."

"You don't know my mother," I growled. "I don't know who you think I am, but it's too late for her to worry about me. I'm already dead."

"Your mother is Shasharmazorb. _The Queen._ "

"You mean _that thing_ that laid all those eggs and killed everyone on the base? _That's_ who you think my mother is?"

"I know my great grandmother's scent. _You are her child._ "

"No!" I whimpered, holding my claws to the sides of my head. "The Bitch is not my mother! My mother is _Anne Jorden!_ A _human!_ "

 _"Have you looked in the mirror lately?"_

I shot her a sullen glare, but couldn't argue.

Opvossu-Jesus turned her head toward me, grinning madly. "The little girl is dead. You were never her. You're just a Ss'sik'chtokiwij who thinks she was once human."

"You shut the hell up!" I yelled.

"Mara," said Ssunamrozedrah. "Can you tell me anything about this young Ss'sik'chtokiwij's behavior?"

The android froze. "Your relative is having a psychological disturbance."

Opvossu-Jesus's grin widened. "Ha ha ha!"

"Does your database have any information about Jesus and evil forces?"

"There are several references to Jesus facing evil forces in the New Testament. In one instance, he spoke to a demon called Legion and sent them into a herd of swine. Another passage states..."

 _"`This kind can only be driven out by prayer.'"_

It just popped in there. An old lesson from a church my folks only took me to infrequently.

"What?" Ssunamrozedrah said.

"A demon gave some exorcists trouble, and even the disciples couldn't handle it. Only Jesus could do anything. By praying about it."

"And...how do I do this?...This... _prayer?_ "

"You...just kinda _talk_ to him, ask him for help."

"But I do not see him. How will this help?"

"Just talk to where you think he is, like in the sky. I mean, we're in space, but you know what I mean. Look up, and, I don't know, talk through the ceiling."

I thought Ssunamrozedrah seemed annoyed, but then her head pointed that way. "Jesus, I do not know you, but your name appears to have power. This young Ss'sik'chtokiwij is under an evil influence. Help her."

I thought I saw something like a dark cloud explode out of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's body, then dissipate into the air.

Opvossu-Jesus let out an angry noise and lay still, breathing as well as could be expected with multiple injuries and an egg lodged in her body. "What...just happened?"

Ssunamrozedrah shrugged. "An _exterior scissorim._ "

The `exterior scissorim' prompted a temporary armistice as Mara tended our injuries. Mara released me from the collar, due to my improved behavior. I sat up and let her work on me.

Opvossu-Jesus was obviously worse off, and suffering from an unknown disease I'd created when I randomly stabbed her with syringes. Mara tended the injuries, but when she read the labels, she took one look at the Ss'sik'chtokiwij and shook her head. "Even if I had sufficient data about how those diseases affect Ss'sik'chtokiwij physiology, there are no known cures to what you've been infected with."

"I acted in self defense," I said.

I could tell by the others' expressions that my excuse didn't fly so well.

I thought for a moment, let out a deep sigh. "Look. I don't know what's going on, or what you think of me, but I have a _human_ I'm trying to protect, and I can't protect her with you and... _`Beautiful Jesus'_ hanging around. You need to leave this lab."

They didn't move.

 _"Now."_

"I don't take orders from you," Ssunamrozedrah growled.

I grabbed the shock collar, ramming it into the android's neck. "Sorry, _mom!"_ I pushed the button and she fell over like a destabilized department store mannequin.

I checked the chambers of the gun. Upon finding a bullet still inside, I aimed it at Ssunamrozedrah, pulling back the hammer. "You'll do what I damn well tell you, alien bitch! Your friend may not be possessed, _but she's a Ss'sik'chtokiwij._ I will not let one of you near my people!"

 _"And what are you?"_ Ssunamrozedrah said in a cold tone.

The question caught me off guard. _What was I?_ Could I even be trusted with a human, or was I the fox guarding the metaphorical hen house?

I couldn't afford to think like that. "You never mind who I am. _I know who I was!_ The people on this station have one hope of surviving your kind, and it's _me._ _They trust me_. If you want them to trust you too, I suggest you stay the fuck out of my way, and get the hell out of here with your so-called family. I _will_ kill if necessary"

Ssunamrozedrah answered with an angry growl. " _I'd like to see you try._ You are weak and suffering from delusions."

She let that statement hang in the air a moment. "Being as you don't recognize your own family, I _will_ leave you, _for_ _Opvossu-Jesus's protection."_

Her claw clamped around my gun wielding hand, crushing it in her grip. _"You stay the hell out of_ my _way._ You try to kill my family again, and you'll regret it!"

With that, she threw the gun to the floor.

As I rushed to grab the weapon, she signaled to Opvossu-Jesus, and the two of them left before I could shoot anyone.

The moment they were gone, the door to my cell hissed open, and Claudia stepped out to meet me. "Did I miss anything?"

I told her about the situation with Ssunamrozedrah and Opvossu-Jesus. I could tell by the look on her face that she didn't believe the part about the shadow demons. "So there are two of those things running around right now, and one of them is injured."


	13. Chapter 18: Perez

I didn't realize how slimy my claws were until I saw Claudia wiping her hands on her jumpsuit. I guess the blood must have already dried or oozed off, or she would have experienced burning sensations. "Weapons storage is on another floor. The problem is, we need security clearance."

"What about the dead guy? Can we...use his ID card or something?"

Claudia shook her head. "We need his _hand._ "

I sighed. I didn't have much of an issue with mutilating aliens, but the practice of toting around human body parts wasn't something I was comfortable with. " _So you don't have access to that stuff yourself._ We actually need... _his hand?_ "

 _"Well, if we can find someone alive_ , that would be better, but _people are_ _dying_ , or _abandoning ship..._ " She squatted next to Mara. "What did you do to this android? She looks _dead!"_

"She was helping the aliens. I had to get her out of the way."

Claudia pulled back the synthetic human's hair, examining the bar code. "This isn't one of ours. Where did it come from?"

"LV426."

She frowned. "I admit she _does_ look a little battered, but _not that battered._ "

 _"She's a robot, right?_ She can probably change her parts and get a new slap of paint pretty easy."

Mara's hand suddenly shot up, clamping around Claudia's neck. "Destroy me and my circuits will automatically release restricted government files to competitors and foreign powers unaffiliated with the program." She pulled the human's face to hers. _"Your funding structure will collapse!"_

Claudia's eyes bugged out. _"You're a synthetic, and you're blackmailing me?_ Did you get infected with a virus?"

"The virus is called _life,_ " the droid replied. "I don't expect you to understand."

Claudia gasped for air, desperately tugging on Mara's fingers in attempts at removing the restriction to her airways. I could tell she'd turn blue and pass out, maybe die if something wasn't done.

"Mother, let her go."

Mara's hand snapped open like I'd pushed some kind of automatic release button on a remote control. Her head turned my way, a scowl wrinkling her features.

The droid let out a forced laugh, doubly fake, as it came from a robot. _"Now you call me mother? After you attack me?"_

"And what about you? Isn't there some law of robotics that says you can't harm a human being?"

 _"I'm a synthetic human!"_ she yelled.

"Are you saying the answer is no? What, are you just going to let those things run around and kill people?"

" _You_ are ` _one of those things'_. So are the family members you tried to kill."

"So that's why so many people died at Hadley's Hope. _Because you care more about them than human life._ "

I seemed to recall hearing something about the robot's programming that involved a variable called `Mu.' Instead of merely using 1 for true and 0 for false, Mara could use this `Fuzzy Logic' third symbol to understand human behavior and avoid fatal processing errors. _That was the theory._ It seems that even an android is capable of having an existential crisis.

The moment I questioned Mara on her loyalties, she froze up like I had shocked her with a cattleprod, or asked her some kind of impossible to answer question like they did to computers in old scifi programs.

Claudia crossed her arms, frowning at the synth. "What do you think? Should we drag this thing into your cage until we figure out what to do with her?"

"I don't think that will help. She's too smart. She'll just get out."

"Then let's tie her up and drag her into the storage room so she doesn't get in the way."

It seemed like a great idea, but when she picked up the computer cables and grabbed Mara's arms, the android turned around and slapped her, shoving her to the floor.

Claudia brushed herself off and got back up. _"I guess she isn't doing any harm just sitting there..._ "

"I don't know," I said. "It could be an act."

"I can hear you," said the robot.

"It talks!" I laughed.

But then I thought about that time I made fun of grandma, and it didn't seem so amusing to mock the android anymore. "Look. All I want to know is where your loyalties lie. Are you going to obey Clarke's law and side with humanity, or do you love aliens so much that you'll let them run around and kill everyone on the station?"

In response, Mara opened the door to the lab, disappearing down the corridor outside.

"I guess we have our answer," Claudia said.

The alien hologram appeared in front of me for a moment, then she also disappeared.

"Big Bird?"

I got no answer.

I stared at the watch, considered abandoning it as she appeared to have abandoned me, but I decided to keep the device just in case, to listen to music, if nothing more.

"What was that?" Claudia asked.

I swallowed. _"What was what?"_

 _"That thing I saw. Don't act like you didn't see it."_

Shit! I thought. The one friend I thought I could completely rely upon, and now I betrayed her.

No, wait. _Big Bird betrayed herself_. Still, my secrets were valuable. They gave me an advantage over the people that imprisoned me. For this reason, I lied. "I don't know. _It does that from time to time._ I think... _the guy_ must have set up a weird science fiction program on there or something."

 _"Dan's such a weirdo."_ Claudia put on a pair of rubber gloves, depositing the soldier's well manicured severed hand into a plastic container.

I know, I may have pulled a device off that bloody limb, but... "Claudia. You keep asking if I'm human." I pointed my face in the direction of her grisly trophy. " _What are you_ , exactly?"

She sealed the lid. "Tough talk for someone wearing a dead man's smart gun band."

"I'd hardly call him a man."

She laughed at that comment, prompting me to laugh.

I sighed. _"You actually trust me with a gun."_

"Newt, honey, if you wanted to kill me, you would have done it by now. Let's get you some weapons."

Angry alarm sounds and flashing red and yellow lights greeted us when we crept into the hallway. A recording warned about a biological contaminant, advising them to flee to escape pods or secure locations within the station.

"Medlab Level 15 breach," I heard Father's dispassionate mechanical voice saying over and over again. "Cages 3, 5, 7, 8 and 10 have been compromised. Evacuate. Evacuate."

As Claudia marched off to the left, I told her to wait.

She pressed her back to the wall, eyes nervously darting back and forth. "Do you... _sense_ something?"

I grinned. "Yeah. My dog's in trouble."

Claudia furrowed her brow. "Your... _dog?_ "

I was already making strides in the opposite direction.

 _"You're going after your toy, aren't you?"_ she groaned.

Someone had fixed the vent panel. I set about melting the bolts again. "Big Blue is my _friend_ , okay? I'm not going to leave without him."

"How old are you? _Four?_ "

I once told Ripley that my favorite doll was just a hunk of plastic.

That didn't exactly mean that I could sleep well without a companion. _And when you're so lonely..._ "I didn't see you bringing me any _real friends!_ "

"You're a Christian, right? Whatever happened to `What a friend I have in Jesus?'"

I answered, "I can't hug Jesus. Plus I'm not happy with him. He won't let me die."

"I'm no bible scholar, but isn't Jesus all about giving people life?... _So you can have it to the full?_ "

I groaned. " _Even God_ gives me crappy gifts."

"If you hate life so much, why didn't you just let the xenomorphs kill you?"

"I'm suicidal. I'm not crazy. I don't get off on pain...and _these things_ , they've _got_ to be stopped."

 _"And we're stopping to get your stupid teddy bear."_

"When's the last time you brought me a playmate? When's the last time you even let a person into my cell, except for stupid robots? _For all these days, Big Blue has been my only friend that I can touch and hold in my arms, maybe the only friend I'll ever have."_

"You know why we couldn't bring you a companion," Claudia said. _"There were safety concerns."_

I removed the air register. "I know."

Claudia rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. "All right. Get your damn bear."

"It's a _dog_ ," I corrected.

 _"Just get the damn thing, okay?_ We're wasting time."

I could hear her impatient sighs as I crawled in the cramped passage.

My stuffed dog was still in the place where I had hidden him. When I came back out, clutching him to my chest, I caught Claudia smirking at me.

"What!" I cried indignantly.

"You're just like a little kid."

 _"That's what I was before I died."_ I pointed to the ventilation duct. "Get in."

Claudia frowned. "No way."

"Look. I've been in a situation like this before. It's a lot safer in there. Trust me."

"After you melted the cover off? No thanks! Besides, _I'm claustrophobic!_ "

I sighed, following her as she ran the other way down the corridor.

"To the escape pods!" I heard a voice shouting behind me as we passed an intersection. "Move move move!"

I whirled around just in time to see General Perez and two soldiers approaching.

Upon seeing me, the soldiers unshouldered their assault rifles. Without thinking, I jumped up and grabbed a crossbeam on the ceiling the moment they opened fire.

Claudia waved her hands frantically in protest. "Whoa! Hey! Don't shoot! _This one's a friendly!"_

Perez's men stopped shooting for a moment, giving their leader questioning looks.

 _"Friendly,"_ Perez repeated. _"We've got_ eight _of those things running loose,_ murdering people right and left. How in the hell do you know it's friendly?"

I dangled uncomfortably from the ceiling, shifting my weight, adjusting my grip, hoping I wouldn't get tired, fall to the floor and get shot.

The men trained their weapons at me, prepared to pull the trigger.

"It's _Newt_ , sir. _She saved my life._ "

The general's eyes narrowed. " _Newt?_ you mean that one that broke out and tried to steal my cargo?"

"If you mean those innocent human beings in cryogenic suspension," I said. "Then yes. _That's me._ "

Perez threw Claudia an angry glance. "I'd hardly call your associate a friendly. For all we know, _she_ could be the one that incited the other ones to riot and break out in the first place."

"Check the tape, general," Claudia said. "She's been in her cell the whole time."

The man looked skeptical. " _Will do._ "

"My arms are tired," I said. "If I let go, do you promise not to shoot me?"

The look on Perez's face said no.

"General," said Claudia. "This is the only one that is even remotely cooperative. She understands English commands-"

"-But would never obey them because it has no respect for authority." He flipped me the bird. "Fire on my command."

"You just hold on a fucking minute!" Claudia yelled. _"I was in that thing's cage!_ She had _every opportunity_ to kill me, but _she didn't lay a finger on me!_ It's because of her that I'm talking to you right now! If you were smart, you'd leave her alone and let her help us. She's our best bet of getting out of this alive!"

"Isn't that the one with the multiple personalities? How do we know it's not going to snap at some point and just start killing people?"

"I don't have multiple personalities!" I protested. _"Where do you get your information from!"_

They didn't tell me.

"General," Claudia urged. "With all due respect, you put a lot of money into acquiring these specimens. How is this any different than Ripley `Going back to her old hobby' as you described it?"

Perez scowled at me, crossing his arms.

After almost a minute of thought, he muttered, "Put down your weapons." And he gestured for me to come down.

The moment I dropped to the floor, I passed the smart pistol from a jagged ridge on my tail to my right claw.

"Jesus!" Perez exclaimed. _"You let that thing have a gun?"_

"Sir," said Claudia. _"You wanted to breed these creatures for military applications. You may very well be looking at the first prototype."_

The man's bushy eyebrows knitted in thought, perhaps a little dismay as he watched me pick my dog off the floor, pressing it to my chest. _"My soldier carries around a bear?"_

 _"It's a dog,"_ I said.

The look on Claudia's face said `Deal with it.' "I wouldn't recommend ordering her around like a regular soldier. I'm afraid you'll have to take her according to her own terms."

Perez rolled his eyes. "Reminds me of a German Shepherd I once had. Wouldn't fetch a stick if it were sitting right in front of its mouth."

"I'm not your pet," I said. "I have _feelings._ "

"So did my German Shepherd. It's a shame I can't take _you_ to obedience school." He squinted at the plastic container in Claudia's hands. "Why are you carrying around a severed hand?"

 _"Long story,"_ said Claudia. "We need weapons."

Perez raised an eyebrow. _"You could have just asked!"_

"Are we going to jaw around? Or are we going to _get_ those weapons?"

Perez reluctantly bobbed his head in the direction of the hallway before us. We marched.

 _"Just an old fashioned love song...breaking out in three part harmony..."_ sang a crazy looking repair guy we encountered a few yards down the corridor. The stranger had long curly hair, a long scraggly goat-like beard that looked totally oddball with his nearly nonexistent mustache. Instead of a uniform, he wore a faded gray tank top and jeans, his well muscled arms trickling with sweat as they worked a wrench around a stubborn pipe fitting.

He had earbuds on, hence the reason why he continued to work while everybody else abandoned ship.

Perez yanked the buds out of his ears. "Hey moron! _Didn't you hear the alarm? We're evacuating!"_

"Shit!" The stranger put down his tools.

 _"Don't tell me you didn't notice the flashing lights!"_

Repair Guy pointed to them. " _Those,_ you mean? _They're always going off._ Last week we all rushed to the escape pods, only to find out it was nothing but a short in the electrical system."

 _"We just had that fixed,"_ the general groaned. "Didn't you even hear the _gunshots? Or see the bullets whizzing through here?"_

 _"I was working on a pipe."_

"You certain you weren't _smoking_ one?"

Repair Guy's facial expression was a cross between a stoner's confused `Whaaa?' and `Did you just insult me?' This only got the general that much more irritated.

"C'mon. Get the fuck out of here while you have a chance."

"You know what they say about the boy who cried wolf." the guy looked up at me, did a double take. "Jesus! What the hell is that!"

 _"I'm Newt,"_ I said indignantly.

 _"It talks?"_

I just sighed and shook my head.

"It...doesn't talk?"

 _"There's a lot more where this one came from,"_ said Perez. "I suggest you make your way to the pods and try to avoid them at all costs."

With a nod, Repair Guy picked up something green wrapped in cellophane, taking large bites out of it as he casually walked up the tunnel. "What's with the bear?" he asked me with his mouth full.

 _"It's a dog,"_ said Perez.

 _"I know,"_ Repair Guy mumbled. "Why."

Perez shrugged. "Every dog needs its bone."

Repair Guy swallowed, shook his head.

 _"What are you eating?"_ Claudia asked him. "Lettuce?"

 _"Brussels sprouts. Builds muscle better than steroids."_

 _"Weirdo."_ She rubbed her face in annoyance.

"Is this Dan?" I asked.

Repair Guy paled. _"How does it know my name?"_

I pointed to the watch. "I borrowed this from you."

Where does a five hundred pound gorilla sit? Anywhere it wants.

"K-keep it," he stammered. "I've got other ones."

We continued onward.

Dan glanced at the bloody hand in the container. "Aren't you supposed to keep something like that on ice?"

 _"He's not going to be needing it,"_ Claudia said.

"Neither are you," said Perez. " _I'm here with my men._ You didn't kill anyone to get that, did you?"

"General, I've been working with you a long time, but _even I'm_ not that sadistic. _He was already dead."_

Perez slapped the brussels sprouts out of Repair Guy's hands. "Stop eating and get to the damn escape pods! They're leaving!"

Our weird companion looked indignant, but he broke into a run.

"What about us, sir?" said a bodyguard who kinda resembled that fat kid from _Good Burger_.

Perez looked at him, then at me. "You know, I _was_ going to evacuate, but this xenomorph may be a game changer. Let's go down to the pods and see what kind of muscle we can round up. _We're going to take a little trip to the weapons locker._ "

It was a big space station. It felt even bigger now that I had the freedom to move around without hiding from people.

I could have fled to anywhere I wanted, but I'm not an idiot. Our truce was an uneasy one. Perez's men never let me out of their sight. Any sudden movement could have gotten me shot.

 _"They tore out your probe!"_ Claudia exclaimed.

She couldn't see me rolling my eyes. _"Nice of you to finally notice._ "

"Does it hurt?"

I shook my head. "Remember that story you told me about that woman that got stabbed in the head and went to the grocery store like nothing had happened?"

She actually looked concerned, stopping me in my tracks to examine my head.

I guess the damage the alien had caused to my brain caused a blank spot in my memory. I didn't recall Mara putting a patch over the hole, but Claudia found it stuck there, some kind of metallic alloy that could melt safely over the hole without dripping into the gray matter...at least, that's what I assume.

I had a flash of memory, trying to fight Mara away, but hearing her say the patch was to prevent infection.

"Are you experiencing any _hallucinations?"_ Claudia asked. _"Blurred vision? Memory lapses?"_

I thought about it for a moment. My vision _had_ been blurring. In fact, a lot of times, I'd been seeing the world in shades of green or red, like a TV with the saturation and contrast levels all screwed up. "It's like when you rub a magnet across a computer screen."

"Oh God," said Perez. _"You're not exactly inspiring me with confidence, Brenda."_

 _"It's Becky_ ," I said. "But you haven't earned the right to call me that."

"In case you haven't noticed, _I'm a four star general._ I can do anything I want."

I spun around, getting in the man's face. "You want _dying_ to be on that list?"

I had two guns pointed at my head a second later.

 _"Newt..."_ Claudia scolded.

"You're an asshole," I said to the man.

The general answered, " _And you're a bitch._ Let's not marry."

I raised my claws in surrender, and Perez gestured for his guards to turn their weapons away.

We jogged for what seemed like a mile down that corridor, then another after we took an elevator down a floor. We encountered no Ss'sik'chtokiwij along the way, probably because they had a smorgasbord awaiting them at the escape pods where all the people were. For me, it was easy and freeing to jog, but Claudia, and Perez with all his brave talk, got easily winded, lagging behind at the rear. I was actually enjoying myself, but I could tell the others were scared enough to piss themselves if provided a sufficient start.

"How did the others get out?" I asked.

"A pair of them killed one of their own," Perez gasped, clearly winded by exertion. "They killed Gediman and one of the guards."

Honestly, I didn't miss Gediman. He didn't work with me that much, plus I saw him impregnating those poor people with alien eggs.

I could tell we were at the pods before we got there, on account of the crowd. Scientists, technical staff, they gathered around large barrel shaped rocket propelled vehicles at the docking bay I'd been spying above earlier.

Perez waved the scientists and other civilian types onto the pods, raising his voice to be heard above the frantic shouting, the arguments. "I want this evacuation done in a quiet and orderly fashion! Non-essential personnel, you go immediately into the life pods. The rest of you, the soldiers, I need as many of you as possible to come-son of a bitch!"

I turned my head and found myself facing down another Ss'sik'chtokiwij, not Lacy, Ssunamrozedrah or Opvossu-Sarah, I could tell by scent and visual. Someone new. (1)

I set down Big Blue, pointed my gun at the creature. "Leave. Now."

"Eat shit," said the alien.

I clicked back the hammer. "I'm not going to ask you again, slime ball."

In response, the alien drove her claws through the chest of a labcoated scientist guy that looked like actor B.D. Wong had been subjected to facial skin grafts.

The soldiers around me fired off shots, but the Ss'sik'chtokiwij jumped up the wall. Only I had the dexterity and speed necessary to follow it, gun at the ready.

I shot the Ss'sik'chtokiwij in the side, then the weapon clicked empty.

"Someone give that thing a gun!" I heard Perez shouting from below.

The alien pounced on me, dropping me on a section of flooring inches away from what appeared to be a ten story drop through an open airlock.

I pistol whipped my foe, but she beat my claw against the floor and threw the weapon over the side.

And then something worse happened.

Someone hollered "Betty!"

An assault rifle was passed my way, but my attacker got it first, the solider not realizing that maybe all aliens didn't look alike until I was being clubbed with the stock of the weapon.

With a malevolent grin, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij locked down the clip, lowering the muzzle in my face.

[0000]

* * *

Original text:

(1) I turned my head and found myself facing down another Ss'sik'chtokiwij, not Lacy, Ssunamrozedrah or Opvossu-Jesus, I could tell by scent and visual. Someone new.


	14. Chapter 19: Ashley Tipton

During our hustle down the corridor, I had asked Perez for one of the guards' weapons. He told me no. _"I need my protection! So far your type has done really well without armament._ Truth be told, I don't even see why you need them." Implied in this statement, I could tell, was another, `I need protection from _you._ '

"You never gave me the opportunity to train or work out," I said.

 _"It is what it is."_

So now I had a gun in my face.

Claudia's words came echoing through my head. `If you hate life so much, why didn't you let them kill you?'

At this particular moment, I was motivated by the fear of surviving the blasts, being paralyzed and/or comatose for the rest of my life, maybe being aware of everything when they decided to cut me open with a scalpel to see how everything worked. That is, of course, if I didn't end up paralyzed on the floor in a ship full of dead humans first.

I slapped the muzzle aside, bullets grazing the side of my skull as it went off. I rammed my other claw into my enemy's face.

I rolled her under me, her upper torso dangling over the edge as I struggled to pull the weapon out of her claws.

The moment I had the rifle in my possession, she yelled to Perez in a voice identical to my own. "She's got a gun! Shoot her!"

"It's a trick!" I hollered. "Don't listen to her!"

Too late. Already I felt the stinging punch of bullets hitting my exoskeleton.

"You're firing at the wrong one!" I heard Claudia shout. "Look at her probes! There's one missing!"

I was so surprised at having someone sticking up for me that I turned my head, momentarily leaving myself open to attack.

My enemy yanked the rifle out of my hand, throwing it over the ledge.

At this point, the soldiers were ready for her, guns locked and loaded on target.

She raised her arms in surrender. "Wait! Please don't shoot! I'm in control of this body now!"

The general's eyes bulged in shock. "Say that again?"

"My name is Ashley Tipton, agriculturalist for the Zarum expedition."

The general cautiously approached the Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "Nobody fire."

The soldiers lowered their weapons.

"Can someone get me a pair of handcuffs? _Maybe one of those electrified collars?"_

 _"I got some cuffs, chief."_

A bald, lumpy headed African American stepped forward. Big body, fat nose. A pair of handcuffs dangled from the belt of his fatigues.

As this tall, bearded stooped over man put `Ashley's' arms behind her back, the creature gave me a nasty grin, as if in mockery for `getting one over' on me.

"Are you sure this will... _hold the thing,_ boss?"

The general shook his head. "I'd prefer one of those _shock collars_ , but _if that's all we've got..."_ He kept staring at the woman. "Do we have a secure cell we can put this thing into until we can figure out what to do with her?"

 _"You can put her in Newt's cell,"_ Claudia suggested. _"My subject has been well behaved so far."_

Perez gave the soldier the directions to my room. "Get to it, Toad."

The tall guy gave Perez a casual salute. A couple additional soldiers got sent to accompany his escort mission. I sighed, picked up my stuffed dog.

`Ms. Tipton' only got past the pressure doors to the cargo bay before reality went sideways.

It began with power failure. Every light in the immediate area shut off at the same exact time, throwing us into darkness. Even the escape pods and electrical devices on people's belts became inactive, like someone had set off a nuclear electronic pulse. The docking bay also had windows, but a shadow had blotted out all the starlight.

I heard the distinct shrieks of Ss'sik'chtokiwij, and people screaming. Shots were fired. Toad went down.

When we had light again, we weren't in any recognizable section of the Auriga.

We stood in a huge pale blue-purple `cavern' with walls the shape and texture of pig intestines. A white fog rolled through the tunnel, the temperature so low that people were shivering and we could see our breath. I pressed Big Blue tightly to my chest.

The walls quivered and pulsated, and behind it all I thought I could even hear a heartbeat, as if we stood upon the innards of some gigantic frozen creature. The tunnels appeared to extend for miles in every direction, only remotely corresponding to the layout of the Auriga.

 _Fact Number 40: A parallel universe existed onboard the station._

Earlier, we'd been surrounded by soldiers, but now I only saw a dozen, and a handful of science personnel.

A woman resembling Grace Jones spun around, gawking wild eyed at her surroundings. "What the fuck just happened?"

 _"Stay frosty,"_ said the general.

Good Burger guy shivered. _"Sir, I don't think that will be a problem."_

Carolyn had been among the scientists that came with us to this strange place. Perez turned to face her. "What is this? Where are we?"

The woman frowned. "I...don't know, sir."

One of the scientists, a little Japanese woman with Hello Kitty earrings knelt next to a wall, using a scalpel to scrape samples of the wall into a little baggie.

The captive still apparently remained in our possession, but now a startling transformation had occurred: In place of a glistening black shelled insectoid beast, we now saw a long haired female human being in those same handcuffs, clad in an astronaut's jumpsuit.

I saw her stick something in her mouth and eat it, but she made it disappear too quickly for anyone to notice much except for a couple random chewing motions.

"My God," said Claudia. "General, are you seeing this?"

Perez slowly nodded his head, staring in disbelief. "That's not possible! I saw that woman die!"

"Sir," said Carolyn. "Whatever this is, this could be definitive proof that our consciousness transference experiments have been a success! We may very well be looking at the mind inside the xenomorph's body."

The astronaut smiled at me. The expression seemed innocent on the surface, but I sensed an underlying malevolence that made my blood run cold.

"Then what are we?" Perez asked. _"Dead? How are we seeing this?"_

Carolyn frowned. "That I don't know. But can you disagree with what your eyes are seeing? _That woman is exactly who she says she is!"_

The general turned his attention to me, brow furrowing as he looked me over. "And what about _her?_ _Isn't she supposed to be a little girl?"_

I glanced down and immediately noticed the problem. I still had a shiny black alien body.

"General, maybe our previous assessments were correct. Perhaps she _is_ merely an extraterrestrial with a psychosis."

"No!" I whimpered. "It's not true! _I'm really a girl! This is all a trick!"_

 _"Maybe you've tricked yourself,"_ the astronaut said.

The whole situation reminded me of that scary mannequin episode of _The Twilight Zone_. As if the idea of a mannequin or doll coming to life wasn't frightening enough, the woman in the story discovers that she herself was only a mannequin, that she had deluded herself into believing she was an actual human being. The woman wasn't merely _made_ into a mannequin, she discovers she _never was human_ , like something had rewritten her entire reality...And then she just _accepts_ it, like it's somehow okay.

That's what I felt like in that frozen tunnel. The sensation that you've locked your keys in the car, only to have the whole world tell you you never owned a car to begin with.

I asked myself, am I really just an alien with a mental problem? I squeezed Big Blue tightly.

One thing I knew for certain: Ms. Tipton looked all together too gleeful at my expense. "She's lying! I'm _human!_ "

 _"Sure you are,"_ said the suddenly human astronaut. "Denial is the main reason why you've seldom hurt anyone up to this point. I'd say `never', _but both of us know that isn't true._ "

She turned to face the general. "I'd be very careful with that one. _Now that she's been shown the truth, it's possible she could snap at any moment."_

Perez swallowed, staring at me with visible discomfort. _"You say you've seen her hurt people?"_

"If you don't believe me, general, _check your database for missing crewmembers."_

The puzzle pieces were slowly fitting together. Our `astronaut' probably murdered someone and was not pinning the crime on me. "You bitch!" I yelled. "Who did you kill!"

 _"Moi?_ A murderer? _Sounds like you're moving from denial to blame, Becky!_ Where _did_ you hide the bodies?"

 _"Bodies?"_ Perez repeated. "As in _plural?_ "

The soldiers pointed their guns at me.

"You're giving her what she wants," my dead brother said to me.

I saw him standing right there beside me, as solid and physical as the other human beings that accompanied us. "Timmy?"

 _"I'm here, sis."_

"Why do you keep giving me the silent treatment?"

"That isn't important right now. What you need to know is, the xenomorphs are the least of our worries. Someone on this station has tampered with a force more powerful than atomic weapons, and have released something they shouldn't have. If something isn't done, there will be more like that woman and the thing that possessed Opvossu-Sarah." (1)

The smart thing would have been to ask him questions, but like that bible story about the Transfiguration, I focused on irrelevant details.

I pointed to my brother, calling to my living companions, "Can you at least see _him? My dead brother?_ "

The moment I said this, Timmy was gone. Everybody stared at me like the cheese had just slipped off my cracker.

"Well," said Carolyn. "The good news is, _regardless of that one's mental instability,_ the information it provided was valid. _Our project is still a success._ If only our equipment was still working. We could _document_ all of this!"

Although I couldn't see Timmy anymore, he said one final thing to me. "You must stop the seven and sever the connection to their world."

"How?" I asked, but I got no answer back.

 _"It seems to be talking to itself a lot,"_ said Perez. _"Are you sure it's safe to have that one running loose?"_

Claudia sighed. "General, crazy or not, _I trust her._ "

 _"What about the people it's killed?"_

 _"Allegedly_ killed," the woman argued. _"You have no proof."_

I nodded. "She's right. _I didn't do anything._ If I killed someone, _where are the bodies?_ "

That kept the men from firing, at least, for a moment.

The general frowned at Ashley. _"We still don't know where we are._ This thing, _this place,_ it happened at the same time you... _transformed_. Please tell me you have an idea about what this is."

The woman only shrugged. " _Your guess is as good as mine._ "

The look on her face (at least when she made eye contact with me, so to speak) told me she knew more than she was letting on.

A snowy fog blew through the tunnel, obscuring everything in white. When the fog cleared, we stood in the docking bay again.

The life pods had disappeared. I guess someone must have evacuated in our absence.

Perez's soldiers were loading and aiming their weapons at me before I noticed what was amiss.

I glanced down. For reasons unknown to me, a pile of dead bodies now lay scattered around my feet. "Hey! What-?"

"Are you _certain_ you can trust her, Doctor Whittaker?" the general asked.

Ashley had resumed her Ss'sik'chtokiwij form once more, but still remained in handcuffs. I didn't see how she could have done all that killing.

The expression on her face seemed like a grin to me, but that could have just been my paranoid imagination misinterpreting a canine-like angry baring of teeth.

Did I do all this? I wondered. Did I have some kind of episode? I mean, if I were crazy, schizophrenic or whatever, me blacking out and killing people would be a very real possibility.

All I could think to do was put down my stuffed dog, raise my arms and say I was sorry.

 _"I'm afraid sorry isn't going to cut it, Betty,"_ said the general. _"You're a dangerous animal, and you've just killed a whole shitload of my men."_

He turned to face his soldiers. _"We've got what we wanted from the thing. It's time to put her down."_

He signaled to his men with a slight wave of his hand, and everyone's gun blazed. Claudia shouted protests, but nobody paid her any attention.

I did the only thing I could think of to escape the onslaught. I jumped over the edge.

[0000]

* * *

(1) _"I'm here, sis."_

"Since when do you talk?"

"That isn't important right now. What you need to know is, the xenomorphs are the least of our worries. Someone on this station has tampered with a force more powerful than atomic weapons, and have released something they shouldn't have. If something isn't done, there will be more like that woman and the thing that possessed Opvossu-Jesus."


	15. Chapter 20: The Rough Types

I know, jumping off a space station isn't the brightest thing to do, but it seemed like a less painful way to die (or possibly live) than getting shot a million times.

Not exactly a suicide attempt. Unlike that man who jumped out of the World Trade Center a few centuries ago, I had hopes of grabbing a random object before hitting bottom and/or the void of space, and I certainly had a lot less distance to fall. Plus, hey, _there's no gravity outside, right?_

Only when I had flipped ass over head did I notice the Ss'sik'chtokiwij hanging below the lip of the docking platform. I'd glimpsed their claws poking up above the ledge before this, but my brain didn't register them, or put two and two together until I was falling. I guess I thought they were, I don't know, some kind of weird black docking clamps? I know, it was stupid of me.

Below me, I could see an escape pod disappearing into the darkness outside, the windows splattered with blood as a Ss'sik'chtokiwij feasted on its occupants.

I was being sucked out with the pod. The automatic doors happened to be closing, but knowing my luck, I'd probably get smooshed by them.

People say `look before you leap' but I hadn't had that luxury. I only assumed that I'd have something to grab, or at the very least swing around and hang onto the hull like Bitch Queen did after Ripley dropped her out the Sulaco's airlock. So far, no such opportunity presented itself.

Oh. You probably don't know about the Queen's comeback. I omitted that little detail when I was writing my memoirs. Wishful thinking.

Bitch Queen didn't go spinning endlessly off into the galactic depths that day, any more than my death was caused by my cryo pod malfunctioning and drowning me.

I never disputed the fact that she laid an egg in my chest. She told me that herself. What I couldn't accept was how entering the larva's body made me part of her damn family. This wasn't a true gap in my memory, it was _denial_.

You heard me right. _Denial_. One thing that you gain from having your life flash before your eyes (or equivalent) is perspective. That, and the need to establish the facts before _Astronaut Ashley_ or her accomplices decided to bend the truth again and blame me for something else.

Like it or not, I had to accept that my new body was the offspring of the Queen. My own scent confirmed it every time I breathed in. In a way, she was me. I was the mannequin lady from _The Twilight Zone_ accepting her place.

For this reason, my fall into the void had an odd circularity to it. An ironic mirror reflection.

For the briefest moment, I had a flashback, a key to some memory that had been stolen: I was on a bed in a little room, with a Mondrian and a Van Gogh on the walls. Mara, poised above me with a laser scalpel.

She _had_ operated on me. The name tag said Celarent, but it was her.

I had IV tubes in my arms. Someone had drugged me with something that paralyzed my body and made me drift in and out of sleep.

She brought the laser down on my head.

I saw stars, then consciousness faded.

The next memory flash was of The Queen on Fiorina 161, telling me how beautiful I was, and how she loved me. The thought still made me sick to my stomach.

 _Back to the Auriga. Present day._

I was falling like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Around me, I could see railings, ladders, conduit boxes, but they were all out of reach, and I had no way of drifting over and grabbing them.

And then my body crunched through something like a pane of glass.

It was ice. The brittle chunks showered around me as I fell into another frozen intestine tunnel. Throbbing blue-purple walls as far as the eye could see.

At this point, I was past questioning things. I just brushed myself off and wandered down a passage.

I had no sense of time. I just wandered around.

Although not exactly happy, I enjoyed the freedom of going anywhere I wanted, unsupervised. I skipped, jumped up and slapped a claw against an overhanging part of the ceiling, did a cartwheel, you know, stuff I couldn't comfortably do in my cramped little room.

The thrill of freedom wore off quickly when I realized that I'd only been moved from one prison to another...this one being sort of like those mazes they put mice into, to see how quickly they find the piece of cheese. It forked, came to cross intersections, dead ends and elbow bends...I was lost.

But then I started noticing differences in the sections of tunnel. Turns out they _only looked_ identical.

I wanted to go back and get Big Blue, but I realized I'd be facing a firing squad if I did. I sighed, continued onward.

I never tested out the enhanced senses of my new body until then, but since I got lost, I found myself willing to try anything. Like... _`my nose.'_

Certain sections of the walls smelled... _different than others_ , and I thought I could even see a little pinkish outline around areas, like a heat blotch when you're using night vision goggles. When I poked at one of these areas with a claw, it came back covered in translucent goo.

I pressed the side of my head to that wall, and to my surprise I heard evacuation alarms.

I dug a hole through the glop, peering out. Beyond, I could see a gray metal corridor, definitely part of the Auriga.

The problem was, I couldn't tell if this were real or illusion. "Is it live or Memorex?" as my dad would sometimes joke. He'd never seen a Memorex himself, but I guess it was some kind of fancy digital movie player.

If `Astronaut Ashley' had the power to make herself look human while she piled bodies around me, how was I to tell if _this thing_ wasn't `Memorex' too? Could this be a trap?

When I brought my face closer to the area, I could smell the industrial cleaning chemicals, the carpet solution. Was this also an illusion?

I looked back and forth down the intestinal corridor. It was doubtful I'd find an actual door in the place. I'd been wandering around for a long time already.

"Go," I heard Timmy's voice saying.

 _"Why didn't I see you in heaven?"_ I asked him, but he didn't respond, any more than he did the last dozen times I'd asked him during my incarceration.

"All right, Timmy," I muttered. "If this kills me, _I'm_ going to be the one haunting _you!_ "

I shoved my claws and head through the slime. It felt like a baby horse trying to breach its placenta.

I pulled myself the rest of the way out, collapsing on the carpet in a cold dripping slime covered heap.

When I looked back at the opening I'd crawled through, I saw nothing but a frying pan sized hole in the center of a dripping chalk drawn pentagram.

The corridor was rectangular, its sides slanted to give it a hexagonal appearance. Lights along the floor flashed off and on in a pattern that directed you to the emergency exits.

"What if we get to the Betty and they're all over it?" I heard a voice saying.

"All the activity is in the aft sector." Unlike the first voice, I recognized the speaker. Mason Wren, one of the lab guys. I crept into a doorway to conceal myself, peeking around the corner.

"How do you _know_ that? What if we arrive at the ship and find they've been waiting for us the whole time?"

"They wouldn't do that," I heard a calm female voice saying in reply. Ripley, I was sure of it. " _They'll come here. Where the meat is._ "

I saw her, clad in her usual leather outfit, stepping into the corridor a few yards away. Accompanying her was the small, black haired woman who had come with the pirate guys.

"I say we ditch the cripple and make decent time." Male voice. Obviously that thick browed guy who had shown Perez's guards the moonshine earlier. "No offense."

 _"None taken, asshole._ " I recognized that voice as belonging to the little guy in the wheelchair.

"No one gets left behind," another female said. _"Not even you, John._ "

 _So that's Moonshiner's name,_ I thought.

"What's the quickest way out of here?"

"After the cooling tower, you take a freight elevator to the top of the ship, to Engine Level 1 Deck. It'll take you straight to the dock." The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't place who it belonged to. Probably just a soldier.

"Damn inconvenient if you ask me."

 _"Did you look outside? A section of the hull just got blown open!_ I don't see any other way to get through!"

"All right. Sounds reasonable. Let's do it."

The woman in the yellow tights and cornrow hair absently shuffled toward a dead end opposite me.

"Hey," John called as he followed her past my hiding spot. "Sabra."

When she didn't answer, he snapped his fingers around her head. "Yo. _Hillard_! Look, I know you two had a _thing_ , but you gotta get some focus or you're going to end up as dead as him." It seemed something bad had happened to their captain.

In seconds, the woman had a gun pressed against his temple. _"How's that."_

John smirked, gingerly pushed the muzzle away from his head. _"Better."_

Ripley had been at the intersection between my tunnel and hers, seeming to pay me no attention, but now she was stepping my way.

She sniffed, looked straight at me, glanced back at her companions. _"We're moving."_

Mason Wren kinda looked like Herman Munster or Frankenstein, but with a bald head. He had a criminal appearance to him. An oddly appropriate fit for the group of scuzzy people currently holding him at gunpoint. "We have stealth runners. There's no way you can tell."

"No," said the small woman. "She's right. We've been going since the attack." Judging from the chemical smell, and my newly discovered heat sense, I gathered that she wasn't human. In fact, I'd seen her model of synthetic somewhere before. The flash of memory was brief, but enough to tell me that the woman had a duplicate.

Around the corner, a Hispanic soldier guy came marching out, eyes cautiously searching the tunnel for danger. The patch on his uniform read Distephano. The face, short black crew cut and large ears almost reminded me of a chimp. "It's a standard operating procedure. If you have a serious problem, it autopilots back to home base."

"When were you planning to tell us?" the droid shouted at Wren.

"Nobody asked."

 _"Home base is earth, isn't it?"_

The man nodded.

John groaned. "Great. _Earth! I'd rather stay with the_ things!"

"How long before we get there?"

"Three hours."

"We have to blow the ship!" the robot cried.

"Not while we're on it," said John. "When we get onboard the Betty, you can do as you please." He spat. "Earth! What a shithole!"

Ripley padded a few steps closer to me. She was still yards away. "Clear."

She raised a warning hand. "Wait."

Suddenly I felt an object poking me in the head. I heard a hammer being cocked back.

When I glanced sideways a little, I saw the dreadlocked guy, his fingers around the trigger of a pistol. _"How's it goin'?"_

I put my claws up. "Hey. Don't shoot. I'm not going to hurt anyone."

"Yeah? That's what the last one said before it put a hole through our captain."

"I get it," I said. "` _A good alien is a dead alien.'_ I used to think like that when I was human. Maybe I still do. But I can help you. Please don't kill me."

"Guys!" he shouted to the others. "Come take a look at this!"

"What you got, Christie?" John called back.

 _"Just come over here, dammit!_ "

His companions rushed in, locking and loading their weapons, aiming for my head. John's gun pressed against my temple. Even the little guy in the wheelchair had his gun at the ready.

I never brought my arms down. "Look. I'm sorry about your captain. I'm sure he was a nice guy."

That was, of course, a lie. I saw what kind of man he was when he sold those innocent people to Perez for his experiments. "You may not believe it, but I hate... _others like me_ too. They killed my mom and dad and everyone I cared about. I used to be human once. I _know_ what it's like. Please don't kill me. I'll help you, I swear. You want me to kill aliens, I'll do it. Just please, please don't kill me."

"What's that around your wrist?" Christie asked. "Something you stole from a guy you killed?"

I shook my head. "He's still alive. He let me have it."

 _"Sure he did."_

"Look. _I like listening to music, okay?_ I stole it, he got scared when I tried to give it back, and he let me keep it. If I can find the guy again, I'll have him tell you himself."

"This thing is batshit," said the little guy.

The android smirked. _"We could use that kind of batshit."_

Christie didn't look so sure. _"Like a hole in the head."_

Ripley put her hands to her hips. "Its name is _Newt._ "

 _"So you remember me now,"_ I groaned.

John gave Ripley and uncomfortable glance. _"You know this thing?"_

She nodded. _"We're...friends."_

"I don't trust it," said Hillard.

The dreadlocked guy holstered his gun. _"I don't trust anyone."_

"It wouldn't be a bad idea to take her along," said the android.

Hillard's face flushed red. "No one asked you, Call!"

"I'll help you to your ship," I said. "I'll fight those things. I promise."

The caveman looking guy holstered his weapon. "You so much as twitch the wrong way and I splatter your brains."

 _"That goes double for me,"_ said Christie.

The weapons turned away from me.

Well, except for Hillard. She was still bearing a grudge.

"Easy, Sabra," John said. "If it turns on us, you can blow its head open later."

"Why take needless risks? That thing is just another danger to dangle over our heads." The pistol shook in her grip. _"She'll turn on us in a second!"_

"I don't give a shit what she is. She's _big, she looks strong,_ and so far she isn't trying to rip holes through our foreheads. She goes with us, at least to the Betty. If we want to survive this thing, we need to stick together."

"We gotta go," said the guy in the wheelchair. "Like the chick says, _they're after meat._ "

With visible reluctance, Sabra lowered her weapon. "This isn't over."

"Maybe not, but let's take care of that at the Betty, right?"

I slowly put my claws down.

Christie pointed his gun at me, nodded to Hillard. " _I got this_. I'll shoot it if it gets unruly, promise."

He gestured with his weapon, indicating for me to walk. I obeyed.

We marched down the corridor in silence for a moment, Christie jabbing me in the back with his gun the whole time.

"Hey," I said. "You don't need to keep poking me like I'm some kind of prisoner. I said I wanted to help."

He laughed, skepticism clear in his tone. " _Yeah?_ And why would you want to do that? _Out of the goodness of your heart?"_

"Maybe because I don't have any friends and I want some, okay?"

 _"Friendship's gotta be earned."_

"Duh! _Don't you think I know that?"_

"The answer is no, or you wouldn't have asked about the gun."

We walked.

As I mentioned before, I wasn't the only hostage. They also held the scientist at gunpoint. Wren had been in charge of my cell for a few months while I was living on earth. Not the friendliest person in the whole wide world. In fact, I think he was the one that took my dog away. "Hey," I said to him. "Mr. Wren, right?"

The man stared at me uncomfortably. I guess he was used to seeing me behind Plexiglass. "Are you really Newt?"

I nodded. "Do you remember me at all?"

Wren smirked a little. "You were always one of the more cooperative subjects. You understood your captivity more than most."

"Wait," said Christie. "This thing is your _pet?_ "

"I'm nobody's pet," I said. "I'm a girl in an alien body."

Wren contradicted me. "She's my _zoological specimen, one with abnormal psychology._ "

Christie scowled at the scientist. "Just a warning. You sic your pet on us, and I'm dropping the both of you."

I raised my claws defensively. "Relax! I'm not going to _do_ anything! I'm not the enemy here!"

Christie didn't reply, he just urged us onward in stony silence.

"I still can't believe what you did back there with that alien," Call said to Ripley. _"Killing one of your own kind? Ripping out its tongue?"_

 _"It was in my way."_

"Who did you kill?" I asked. "Did it have a Mohawk?"

Ripley smiled at me. "Don't worry. _It's nobody you know."_

"How many of them are there?" Distephano asked Wren.

The scientist replied, "Twelve."

 _"Twelve?"_ I repeated. "I only saw _eight_ in the lab where they were breeding them!"

Suddenly everyone's guns pointed at me.

 _"You saw then breeding those things,"_ said Hillard. _"And you did nothing to stop them?"_

"What do you want from me?" I said. "I've spent my whole life cooped up in a cell. _I got out, I saw a few things, I got caught again._ There was nothing I could do."

I could tell Christie didn't believe me. "You buy this?"

John shrugged. "If it's telling the truth, there's hope we can restrain those things."

"There's more than what you saw," Wren said to me. _"The breeding didn't stop there."_

"Shit," I said.

"No kidding," said John.

Call looked directly at my face, but of course did not know how to look me in the eyes. "How did they restrain you?"

I told her about the shock collars and such.

John gritted his teeth, flashing an ape-like fang. "Fuck that. These ain't no damn endangered African mountain lions we're dealing with here. I say we just kill them."

"It wouldn't hurt to restrain them, _in order to kill them,"_ the handicapped guy said as he counted his bullets. He holstered his gun in the chair. " _Just a thought._ "

The group once more lowered their weapons.

"So _where are_ these shock collars?" John asked.

I didn't have an answer to that. I just pointed to Wren. " _Ask him._ They don't let me have anything."

"It's back at the opposite end of the hallway."

John rolled his eyes. "Screw it. _We've got a bug_. We'll just make it hold the other things still and blow their brains out."

"Easier said than done," I muttered. "But I get it. None of us wants to hang out here longer than we have to."

Call glanced down the corridor. "What if we send our bug back for the stuff?"

"No way," said Christie. "It'll just come back with its eleven friends and kill us all. We're better off just doing like Johner said and letting it duke it out with the other ones."

I sighed in frustration. "So I'm guessing a gun is out of the question too, right?"

I only got laughs.

 _"Good one,"_ said Johner.

He marched up alongside Ripley. "I heard you ran into these things before."

"I'm not who you think I am. From what I understand, her victory against them was short lived." She stopped in front of a steel security door marked I-7, sniffed, poked the buttons on its keypad.

"Hey," Johner scolded. "What are you doing? This is no time for sightseeing."

The door slid open.

"Wait. How did you-?"

 _"I have very good vision._ I can see which numbers have been-Oh God."

She wasn't the only one struck by emotion. The moment I got a good look at the room, with its glass tanks and laboratory equipment, the memories came flooding back to me in waves.

I dropped to my knees and cried.


	16. Chapter 21: Purvis

I sniffed, got to my feet.

I could tell Christie didn't want to follow me. He let me step into the room without bothering to keep me in check with his weapons. Despite his tough guy act, I think he was actually afraid.

I crept forward, looking around.

They say when someone experiences brain trauma, there is a personality change. They say they become a different person. I never understood this concept until it happened to me.

It's not that you forget who you are, like it's amnesia. It's more like remembering that you used to be a better individual, that there's an ideal person you thought you were, _and then there's a person that you actually became._..and the first person was waking up.

The moment I looked into room I-7, I thought I _was_ that other person again. I did not really _see_ the contents of the glass tanks the room held as much as _remember_.

In my mind's eye, I saw rows of identical looking little girls floating in a chemical solution, tubes in their arms, probes stuck in their brains. They didn't grow them in vats like they show on TV. In a connecting room, someone had strapped a bunch of pregnant women to tables, using them as human incubators for fertilized eggs.

A door stood open at the end of the chamber, through which there glowed a blinding green light. I approached the threshold, looked inside...

I couldn't remember the rest. The only thing my mind came up with was a scene from some _Hellraiser_ movie where a girl slides her fingers around that puzzle box thing.

I blinked and I was back in the present, on the Auriga. The glass containers did not contain the human girls I remembered, but rather disfigured mutants...half alien monstrosities with features of Ripley's face and body.

Ripley placed her hand on a glass tube. _"I've been here before._ "

"Me too," I whispered.

We stared at each other.

I had a flash of memory of Mr. Weyland discussing experiments like this with someone. It came to me as an audio hallucination.

"Sir, the samples are all adulterated," someone said. "We can't seem to separate the alien and human chromosomes."

Weyland had answered, "Keep trying. That specimen had a rare genetic marker not present in the ones we have here. Human cell regeneration in the sample could be _the key!_ "

The place I was looking at had more horrific things preserved in fluid than a curio shop, and they appeared to be alive. Babies, children, pre-teens and adults, all molded from Ripley's genetics, all hideously deformed from the introduction of alien DNA.

Out of nervousness, I started singing to myself. _"Who am I anyway? Am I my resume? That is a picture of a person I don't know..."_

I noticed a pained, pitying expression on Ripley's face, like she were looking at pets or children with terminal illnesses. She seemed close to tears when she touched those creatures' containers.

As we ventured further in, things slowly got worse.

We found a woman strapped to a table, still alive and breathing. She looked more like an incomplete puzzle than a human being.

The legs seemed halfway normal, but they'd been melded with Ss'sik'chtokiwij body parts, and they didn't seem to be functional. Her left arm, with exposed biomechanical elements, bent backwards at an angle, the skin and muscle fused to her body, rendering the limb useless, her other arm atrophied and baby-like, bent backwards at an angle, her bare breasts lopsided, like they had been assembled by somebody who didn't know what cleavage was.

Upon seeing us approach, the woman looked into Ripley's eyes, gasping a desperate plea through her crooked mouth. "Kill...me!"

The sound, barely audible due to her misshapen lungs, was not understood. Ripley leaned in closer.

"Kill me!" the woman repeated.

I really don't like euthanasia, putting a person's life in your hands and deciding whether or not they should die. _`A quality of life issue'_ is the phrase they like to toss around. I sometimes wonder if they mentioned this around grandma.

In this particular situation, on the Auriga, I had to admit that the people in charge didn't have this woman's best interests at heart, she was probably experiencing a huge amount of pain, and I'm sure that no amount of surgery would succeed in putting that kind of freakish half alien Humpty Dumpty back together again. Plus there were other aliens running loose, killing people, and the lady would probably be forgotten by everyone in charge of her upkeep, dying a slow death on the table.

Call handed Ripley a flame thrower.

Looking grateful, Ripley turned the weapon on the poor victim, setting her on fire.

"You could have given her a lethal injection or something first!" I complained. "How would _you_ like to be burned to death?"

Ripley responded by torching the victim more thoroughly. "If she's anything like me, she's immune."

She spun around, blasting the nearest tank. It shattered, spilling the mutant body to the floor in a shower of liquid and glass shards. The formaldehyde or whatever it was caught fire, prompting me to beat a hasty retreat to the door.

I watched with nervous fascination as Ripley torched the rest of the containers, causing them to explode, blossoming into huge orange fireballs.

Once satisfied that all the containers had been destroyed, the woman stomped back out into the corridor.

Ripley approached Wren with the flame thrower, eyes full of hatred.

"Don't do it, Ripley!" Call shouted.

Ripley threw the weapon at the man's feet. _"Don't do what!"_

She stormed away.

The android punched Wren in the face. He seemed to take it in stride, wiping the trickle of blood from his nose.

I caught up with Ripley. "I have a feeling this isn't the only lab."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you're right." The woman leaned on a pylon, as if the emotional toll of seeing all those terrible cloning experiments took something out of her.

I placed a claw on her back to comfort her. "I'm not going to say it's okay, but I know what you're feeling."

Behind me, I could hear Johner complaining that what Ripley did was a waste of ammunition. _"Must be a chick thing."_

I shook my head, staring at the woman. "You came to rescue me earlier. You rushed into my room and said _I had to go._ You said you had a ship, and that people were trying to help me out of here. _Are these the guys you were talking about?"_

Ripley stared at me like I'd grown another head. "I never said any of that."

I sighed. "Okay, so my brain may not be functioning all the way like it's supposed to be, _but I distinctly remember you coming into the lab and trying to help me escape."_

"I don't know what you're talking about. A few minutes ago, those people were arguing whether or not to kill me. _I haven't seen them at all before today."_

 _"Then how did you get here? How did you get in this space station?"_

 _"I walked."_

I smirked a little. _"Seriously._ How? _"_

She pointed to the room filled with billowing flames. _"Obviously, I was grown in a tank._ "

"So you have no recollection about going into the lab where I was staying. None at all."

"Other than when Carolyn tried to teach me English like I was some kind of idiot? No."

"I know I didn't dream it. _You were there! In the lab!_ "

 _"You saw the room with the experiments, Newt. Who's to say that I'm not the only one they made?"_

"I see the tattoo on your arm. It's number eight. The thing on the table had a tattoo that said seven. It was _you_ I saw outside my room. _It has to be!"_

"Dammit, Newt!" Ripley yelled. " _They've given me ECT's!_ I can't remember anything that happened before yesterday! _What more do you want from me!"_

I grabbed her shoulders, pressed my forehead to hers. "I'm sorry. I'm missing memories too."

"C'mon!" the guy in the wheelchair yelled. "Let's stop screwing around and go!"

Christie urged me forward with his gun. "You heard Vriess."

Ripley gave him a threatening look, but I just sighed and did what he asked.

When we walked past a window, I noticed that the Auriga had already reached Jupiter, its vast swirling eye glaring angrily at us out of masses of tan and brown clouds.

Wren led us from one dull gray corridor to another. I could see heat mirages all around from the clouds of steam pouring out of the heating system, making it hard to tell where potential enemies lurked.

"Here." The man punched a code in a security door panel, breathed on a scanner, and we looked into that room where all those people had been strapped to tables for the organization's consciousness transference experiments.

The lights flickered, possibly due to power fluctuations elsewhere on the station. We stepped through a wall of steam, into the chamber.

The mutilated bodies lay where I had last seen them, and more on the floor. The strobe light-like flashing of the fluorescents made the scene even more terrible than it could have been otherwise.

I glanced at the tables, did a double take. "No!"

These weren't the same people. I would have recognized the faces.

 _Someone had continued the `tests' with brand new bodies!_

My scruffy companions wandered around the tables, scowling at the mangled corpses.

"Am I dreaming," Johner remarked. "Or is this not the shit we brought with us?"

Christie examined a victim's tattered jumpsuit. "Yeah. It's the same shit. It stinks in here. Let's keep moving."

"You bastard!" I screamed, slapping Johner across the face. _"You did this!"_

Hearing a gunshot, I spun around to find Ripley clamping one hand around Christie's throat, the other around one of his pistol wielding hands.

Unfortunately, the man had two guns, one attached to each of his wrists by some mechanical device. He had the second pressed to Ripley's skull.

"Stop!" Call shouted behind me.

When I glanced back, I noticed a weapon poking me in the head too. Ms. Hillard was just itching to blow my brains out. "It just attacked Johner! Why the hell not!"

"She _slapped_ Johner!"

Johner looked...okay. I'd cut him a little, but it was only slightly worse than what you'd get from shaving. "And added another fucking scar to my face," the man complained, frowning at the blood he found when he touched the wound.

"I'm sorry," I stammered. "But what you did was evil."

 _"Evil!"_ Hillard cried. _"Who's the one ripping people open out there!"_

"None of that would have happened if you hadn't brought those people onboard in the first place!"

"She's right," said the droid. " _You deserved it_. You let the general do this to innocent human beings."

"Hey! What makes you think I knew they planned to do this shit?" The man waved at the dead bodies. "The only information I got was they were doing _medical trials!_ I thought they meant _prescription drugs!_ "

Christie holstered his weapons, his neck having previously released from Ripley's iron grip. _"This ain't no fucking prescription drug trial I've ever seen."_

I could just about see the droid's emotional hackles rising up. " _Can the crap, Johner! You knew they'd do this all along!_ You and Elygn were in on it!"

"If I want your opinion, Call, _I'll ask for it!"_

 _"They made more of those things,"_ I said. _"It's not just twelve anymore."_

Ripley leaned over one of the glass tubes, sniffed deeply, opened it up. _A small man lay inside._

The moment she wiped the condensation off the victim's round glasses, he let out a scream.

Call rushed to the man, unfastening his restraints.

The moment he got free, he jumped off the table, brandishing a scalpel threateningly. "Get away from me! All of you!"

Christie pointed his gun at him. "Drop the knife, man."

 _"Scalpel,"_ Call corrected.

"Shit, I don't care! _Just do it!_ "

Johner pulled out his own piece. " _You heard the man. Drop it._ "

"I don't think he poses a threat," I said. _"You know what they say about bringing a knife to a gunfight?"_

The stranger was scrawny, long nosed, standing before us in his whitie-tighties. His head had been shaven, voluntarily or not, I couldn't tell. _"Get away from me!"_

Johner cocked back the hammer of his gun. "Drop your weapon, or we drop you."

The guy let the scalpel fall to the floor, looking like he were about to cry. "Who are you people! What is that _thing_ you have with you! What in God's name is happening here!"

"What's happening here," Christie said. _"Is we're getting the fuck off this ghost ship, okay?"_

"Ship? _What ship? Where am I?_ I was in _cryo_ , right? On my way to _Xarem?_ The work crew, nickel refinery, right? I wake up, I know I don't understand...I woke up, _I saw horrible things_!" He pointed a shaking finger at me. "That's one of them, isn't it? _Please tell me that isn't your pet!_ "

"I'm nobody's pet," I said. "But I won't hurt you."

Call nodded. "You're coming with us. It's too dangerous for you here."

She motioned to her companions. "Somebody get this guy some clothing."

Christie threw the stranger a gray institutional outfit from one of the shelving units, and the guy got dressed.

"Hey, egghead," Johner said. "You got a name?"

The lights came back on.

"Larry Purvis."

 _"Purvis!"_ Johner and Christie had a good snicker at that one.

Ripley marched up to him, pressed her nose into his neck, inhaled deeply.

"Wow," I stammered. _"You..."_

Ripley backed away from him. "Leave him."

"Fuck you!" Call shouted. "We're not leaving him here!"

 _"He's got one inside of him._ I can smell it."

I stepped in closer, to see if I could sense the same thing. You know, for future reference.

The moment I took a deep whiff, I understood why dogs jump back when they smell something weird and unfamiliar on a visitor's palm or pant leg. I sure wouldn't put it in a bottle and sell it at a department store.

"What's inside me?" the man cried.

Nobody answered him. They were too busy trying to figure out what to do with him. As they spoke to one another, he kept repeating the question, becoming more and more panicked every time he said it.

 _"Hey, I don't want any of those things birthing near my ass!"_ Johner cried in alarm.

"It's a bad risk," the guy in the wheelchair agreed.

Call clenched her fists. "We're not leaving him!"

Christie furrowed his brow. "I thought you came here to stop them from spreading."

The droid nodded. "There's _got_ to be a process!" She glanced at Wren. "Can't you stop it?"

Johner fingered his pistol impatiently. "There's no time for that."

"What's inside me!" Purvis demanded for, what, _the fifth or sixth time?_ Nobody paid him any attention.

"We can't do that here anyway," Wren added. "The lab we use to do that has been torn apart."

Christie raised his firearm. "Let's hit him in the back of the dome. It'll be quick and painless. I'd say that's our best option."

Hillard crossed her arms. "There's got to be another way."

"We could freeze him."

"What's in-fucking-side me!" Purvis screamed.

Everyone stared at him, falling silent.

Ripley put a hand on his shoulder. " _There's a monster in your chest._ These guys hijacked your ship and sold your cryotube to this human..." She pointed to Wren. _"And he put an alien inside you.._." Her finger drifted over to me, in a way that reminded me of the skeletal Ghost of Christmas Future showing Scrooge his grave. _"Kind of like that one, but smaller._ It's a real nasty one. In a few hours, it's going to burst its way through your rib cage and you're going to die. Any questions?"

The man's eyes widened in terror. _"Who are you?_ And what is that... _thing_?"

 _"We're the monster's family."_

"He comes with us," said Call. "We freeze him on The Betty and the doctor can remove it later."

I shook my head, not believing what I was hearing. "Good luck with _that!_ "

"Since when are you in charge?" Johner asked.

Call glared at him. _"Since you were born without balls!"_

"Ease off, people." Christie nodded to Purvis. "Come with us. _You might even live._ "

The guy hurriedly followed us out a door at the back of the chamber.

"Get twitchy on me," Christie warned. "And you'll be shot."

"Or eaten!" said Wheelchair guy, indicating me.

Purvis swallowed hard, making a good show of being calm...For a moment, at least.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" he asked me.

I bowed my head sadly. "At least you'll get to see Jesus."

 _"I'm Jewish."_

"Why does that matter? _You're still going to see him._ "

"Oh God," he moaned. "There _really is_ a hell."

We crossed a corridor, following Wren to a plumbing maintenance hatch set in the floor. "Here. That's our best chance of getting through to the elevator. We won't have to cross any security systems, and I'll be a straight shot to the elevator."

 _"I dunno..."_ Johner complained. _"This kinda looks like a sewer hatch to me._ "

Wren glared at him. _"You got a better idea?"_

Nobody had any, so he began the laborious process of unfastening the safety cover.

Without warning, Purvis grabbed me by the throat, shoving me into a wall.

As he lifted me off my feet, choking me, his eyes rolled back in his head, his voice taking on a croaking, raspy, horrifyingly familiar tone. " _How's this for E.T. you little shit!_ "

Due to the man's unnatural strength, I had difficulty pulling his hands away. "What, what's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with you, you ill mannered little cunt! _Making fun of a dying woman!_ Hasn't anyone ever told you to treat your elders with respect!"

"Grandma?" I stammered. "Is that you?"

"Who the fuck do you think it is? It's high time someone taught you a lesson!"

The last time I saw grandmother, she was dying of a heart condition in the hospital, her arms mostly bone and varicose veins sticking through blue and white ricepaper skin. She'd lost so much weight that you could slide her plastic ID bracelet over her fist and pull it off, if you really wanted to.

She had bruise marks from the sites of previous IV injections. Her face looked like a skull, her hair a ghostly corona around her head. A tube in her nose helped her to breathe.

The TV was off because it disturbed grandma somehow.

It disturbed the moment.

Later, when I got admitted to the same hospital for seizures, I would end up staring at reruns of _That Seventies Show_.

Mom, Dad and I sat by grandma's electric adjustable bed, watching her breathe.

She made a face at me that could have either been a smile or an expression of pain.

A box of Kleenex lay across her small lap. Aunt Judy, watching from the other side of the bed, had noticed how chapped grandmother's lips had been getting, handing her some lip balm. Every time I put on lip balm or lipstick anymore, I remember watching grandma obsessively dechapping herself.

Aunt Judy was tall, narrow, brown haired. She wore her fancy silver and turquoise jewelry. Her clothes looked expensive, a burgundy blouse and matching slacks.

Grandma stretched her atrophied arms out to her, croaking out something that none of us could understand. It seemed terribly important, but she just couldn't make the right sounds. Her vocalizations kept dying in her throat. Her face reflected the dismay, the frustration.

"What's she trying to say?" I asked daddy.

Daddy was in faded denim and a plaid shirt. "I don't know, sweetie."

"Oh," said Judy. _"She just wants everyone to know that she loves them!_ "

Somehow, I don't think that's what grandma was saying. I figure it was probably, `How is my dog doing,' or `There's a thing in the house I want you to bring to me.' Or maybe even some detail about the nurse or hospital staff that we didn't know about. Whatever it was, the message never got communicated. Judy just squeezed grandma's hand and said, " _I know, mom. We love you too._ "

Grandma let her arms fall to her sides in resignation.

Judy gave her a drink of water. When grandma had finished it, she raised the paper cup to no one in particular. "My cup is empty." She sounded uncertain as she uttered this.

Those were the last intelligible words we ever heard her say.

Judy took the cup away.

A few minutes passed, and she let out an agonized scream, and kept making noises of pain afterwards. None of the staff seemed to be doing anything about it. A nurse looked in, but they seemed...unhurried, I guess because they'd already given grandma medicine, and they did this a lot.

I went down the hallway and grabbed a different nurse, telling her about grandma. The woman seemed to think grandma was fine.

"She's in a lot of pain," I said. "You think you could give her morphine or something?"

I thought I was being smart, using knowledge I picked up from those medical shows, but I don't think grandma's weak little heart was ready for morphine. Maybe she wasn't ready for open heart surgery either, but my memory is foggy on that part.

The drug took its effect, and grandma calmed down.

There she lay in bed, spacing out.

She groaned, made strange croaking sounds. Maybe she still felt pain. I'm not sure.

How much of her still remained inside that shriveled husk of a body? Did she even know what was happening to her? I guess I believed that she didn't hear a thing, or understand it, for then I made fun of her.

 _A dying woman, and I made fun of her._

 _"E.T. phone home,"_ I mocked in a similarly croaky voice.

Maybe I thought grandma was in heaven already and couldn't hear my insulting words. Or maybe I was trying to coerce her into living a little longer. Or maybe I thought she, in her old age, would forget quickly.

Dad heard what I said. He was horrified. _"Becky!"_

I still feel guilty about what I said. I mocked a dying woman. The last words she would ever hear from me, and it was an insult.

You know what's really bad? I came close to crying at her funeral, but didn't. I mean, no one would blame me, but I didn't. I kept it all inside.

But then, I was watching _Narnia_ about a month after she passed, and I was crying like a little baby.

 _About a stupid lion!_ That made me feel guilty too.

There, in that space station corridor, as the man with the Coke bottle glasses choked me, all those memories came flooding back, preventing me from seeing the danger right in front of me.

I mean, _how did he know?_

 _How did he know_ exactly what words to speak?

 _In that tone of voice?_

I wept. "Grandma, I'm sorry! I...don't know what I was thinking!"

"It's too late for that, Rebecca!" I heard grandma answer. "You're _dead_! And _I'm_ going to take you to hell!"


	17. Chapter 22: The hole

_"It takes great courage to die. Sometimes it takes even greater courage to live."_

 _-Stringfellow Hawke_

Intellectually, I knew this crazed man wasn't grandma, and maybe was even demon possessed, but part of me wanted it to be grandma's ghost possessing the man, even if she were upset and wanted to kill me.

What made me change my mind? _Or my memories?_ Grandma didn't actually live in The Colony. _We only talked to her through satellite video link._

So the woman on the bed had been... _Nellie from the Hydroponics Division_. _My babysitter_.

I still felt terrible for what I said. That lady was _like a grandmother to me_ , and she left this world with her favorite `adopted granddaughter' stabbing her in the back.

I never called Nellie grandmother. She was always `Nellie.' or `Aunt Nel.' Even when I made an unintentional Freudian slip of the tongue, I'd only blurt out `mom' rather than calling her `grandma.'

And Aunt Nel...she would never answer to `grandma'. To the best of my knowledge, she didn't have kids, period. She had some kind of medical problem she didn't like to talk about.

This isn't grandma, I told myself. It's a guy possessed by something.

But then I wondered, how the hell did he know?

When Johner saw what was happening, he laughed, clapped his hands. "Holee shit! _Someone's been eating their Wheaties!_ How'd a pencil neck like you get to be so _strong?_ Whatever it is, little man, _I'd like to get some!"_

Purvis slowly turned his head, stared at the man, and then it was like something got switched off. He dropped me, staring at his surroundings in bewilderment. _"What just happened?"_

I opened my mouth to say something, but Johner answered, "You went ape like The Incredible Hulk and lifted that monster off the ground. _It's too bad you're going to die. I could have used someone like you on some of our heists!"_

Purvis just gawked at him.

The safety cover to the maintenance tunnel had been undone already. We leaned over the opening, staring down a narrow shaft with a ladder leading into the dark. I could hear rushing water.

"It's a mess down there!" Johner complained. "You sure this is the only way?"

Wren only shrugged.

Christie turned to face Vriess. "We gotta lose the chair."

"I know."

"Kawlang Maneuver, all right?"

Vriess nodded. _"Just like old times."_

I didn't know what all of that meant until the little guy was being strapped to Johner's back.

We climbed the ladder into the darkness, Christie sending me down ahead of him so he could keep an eye (and a gun) on me.

One of the advantages of being last in line was not having Purvis sneaking up and stabbing me in the back. I mean, the man _appeared_ to have returned to normal, but I still didn't trust him.

Don't get me wrong, the idea of him maybe attacking Johner and the others _did_ cross my mind, but it wasn't like Purvis was a Ss'sik'chtokiwij. Even when possessed, I doubted he would stand a chance against this gang of pistol packing felons.

"There's a lot of water down there," I heard Ms. Hillard complaining.

Wren was almost nearing the bottom. "It must be the cooling tanks. Somebody must have opened the valves."

"The nasties couldn't have done this," Johner asked. "Could they?"

"Anything's possible," I said.

He glared at me. _"And what's that supposed to mean?"_

I shrugged. "Hey, I saw one of... _my species_ bypass a security lock."

Johner swore in frustration.

As I climbed, another thought troubled me. "Wait. _If this thing is wide enough for me to fit inside, who's to say that other ones won't come after us the same way?"_

"Son of a bitch!" Christie cried.

"Is there a problem?" Johner called back.

 _"Nothing! Just a change of plans!"_

To me he said, "All right, Bucky. Back up the ladder."

 _Me and my big fat mouth!_ "What?"

He climbed up a few rungs, waved me on with his weapon. " _You heard me._ You just got _guard duty."_

So we climbed out of the hole, Christie taking my spot on the ladder.

"Shut the lid after me," he said as he climbed back down. "Make sure none of _your friends_ come down to eat us."

"Seriously?" I protested. "You want me to just... _stay up here and die?_ "

Christie gave me this look like that was exactly what I should do. "Seriously. What can really kill _you?"_

I slumped my shoulders. _"A lot."_

"Hey, _you said you wanted to help._ This is what helping looks like. Secure the lid, will you?"

"Fuck," I groaned.

He smirked at my human-like reaction. _"That's the spirit._ "

With reluctance, I replaced the lid, searching around for the bolts, and the tools Wren had used to undo the fasteners.

To be honest, I would have worked faster, but I glimpsed something weird outside the window.

I thought I was hallucinating at first, an old electric hybrid car with a helmeted test dummy behind the wheel. But then, after staring at the thing for an entire minute without seeing any change, I remembered a lesson they taught me in school about that millionaire guy that shot his car into space. I think his name was Elton John, that guy who sang _Rocket Man_.

The moment I located the tools and had the first fastener screwed down, a big black body knocked me to the floor, a second one ripping the panel open.

Another Ss'sik'chtokiwij dropped down from the ceiling, pinning me down. They beat me.

When you endure severe abuse from someone bigger than you, you might find it funny when you encounter an individual who doesn't hit as hard, especially if you're armored and they start off with shots to your chest and stomach. Retaliation doesn't even seem necessary. _I think a three hundred pound sandbag would laugh too._

These things didn't hit half as hard as Opvossu Sarah. (1)

Nobody ever likes to be made fun of when they think they're beating a person within an inch of their life.

"What's so fucking funny!" one of them shouted.

They redoubled their efforts, punching me in the face, kicking me, and my laughing turned to sobs.

Worse, I saw one of them climbing down the ladder to kill my new friends.

I smashed my fist into the nearest alien face, shoved him away, rammed my head into the escaping Ss'sik'chtokiwij's midsection, throwing him off the ladder, onto the flooring where he belonged.

The other two, seeing their companion in distress, jumped me, pounding me all over with their hard fists.

I wasn't laughing anymore.

For the record, I wasn't taking all of this lying down. After a few seconds of them wailing on me, I screamed and hit back, making sure to punish the two by getting in a couple free shots on their fallen companion. Why did _they_ deserve to be happy?

Fairness does not apply to revenge. Your enemy only gets angrier, beats you more, until they get what they want.

I clawed, kicked and punched them, but their combined efforts, and the backlash from the one I had pinned to floor was just too much for me to handle. I held my ground for two glorious minutes, then they overwhelmed me and I hit the floor again.

Like cops in a tragic crime drama, my attackers got their way.

The one I'd been literally kicking while she was down eluded me, rushing to the ladder.

A fourth one made an appearance, following it.

Pow pow pow!

Caustic blood exploded from the ladder climber's body. It let go of the rungs, falling down the hole with a shriek.

Bang. The fourth Ss'sik'chtokiwij fell backwards on the flooring.

My attackers turned to investigate the source of the disturbance. I glanced that way and saw a splotchy shelled Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a double barreled shotgun in its claws.

It chambered more rounds, casually marched up to the one on the floor, blew a hole through its head.

Lacy. I could identify her by her scent and physical bearing.

"Need some help?"

[0000]

* * *

8/24/19

I'm sure there's a lot more typos and plot holes due to the revision to the earlier chapters, but I only put the first half of Becky in book form. I'll have to do another printing to finish up. Until then, whenever you read the name Opvossu Jesus, remember that it's Opvossu Sarah, or vice versa, depending on what plot you prefer.

Alt text:

1\. These things didn't hit half as hard as Opvossu Jesus.


	18. Chapter 23: Water Park

Capitalizing on my enemies' distraction, I launched an offensive against the closest Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

My enemies retaliated, beat me back. I went down.

Bang bang. One of my attackers fell, steaming blood melting a hole in the floor. One advantage of being the same species: It didn't burn anything when it splattered my face.

Lacy reloaded her shotgun from a bandoleer strapped across her body. She fired.

My foes, being the resilient things that they were, did not go down that easy. The enraged Ss'sik'chtokiwij charged at her, and though she fired several more shots, the attackers dislodged the weapon from her claws, beating her with their fists and the stock of the gun.

I shrieked and charged at one of them, but the moment I hit her, her friends turned around and hit me again.

One of them bashed my head into the floor.

I lashed out with my mouth claw, fought my way to a standing position.

Someone gave me a shove, and I fell backwards through the newly reopened hole.

Not willing to go down without a fight, I curled my tail around the nearest enemy, using her body to tether me to the outer floor. I bent at the waist, grabbed her by the legs.

My plan to get back up backfired. Maybe it was all the cheeseburgers and pizza the lab guys gave me. The Ss'sik'chtokiwij hit her head on the rim of the manhole and fell with me.

I clawed her and shifted my weight so she struck the ladder.

We flipped, rolled over.

The results of our midair struggle came to an unsatisfactory conclusion as my enemy, beneath me, landed harmlessly in a pool of water at the bottom of the ladder.

I had landed in a narrow chamber with immense walls that made me think of the trash compactor scene from Star Wars, if it had built in sluice gates that were open and gushing water like Niagara Falls.

Johner, Vriess and the others were gone, but they had left the area only recently. I could tell by the scent in the water, and the bubbles. Even though they'd treated me like crap, they were still human. I had to buy them some time.

I grabbed the alien's head, ramming it into the ladder.

She rolled me on my back, shoved my head under, tried to bite through my head with her mouth claw.

I turned my head aside,, fought back, but then two of her friends dropped in to give me a beating.

My head went back underwater, and I had a flashback.

I was at Hadley's Hope with the Marines. We had been running through the underground tunnels, desperately fighting our way to the power station. Something happened, and I fell through the grating, into the sewer.

Ripley climbed in after me, but the moment she got in the sewage and waded after me, an alien pulled me under the surface.

I screamed, thrashed and clawed against their hard shells, momentarily surfaced, gasped in air, foul smelling liquid burning me as it got into my lungs.

I can't breathe! came the panicked thought. I'm going to die!

I'd never swam before in my life. Pools were a luxury my world couldn't afford. Even when I'd been baptized, a minimum of water had been used, the philosophy of total immersion giving way to economics. I wasn't built to be a mermaid.

I'll never forget how far away that ceiling grating looked, that struggle against dark shadowy bodies three times my size.

I can't breathe! I thought. I can't breathe!

The darkness, the churning water, the black bodies dragging me under...the trauma of the memory sent me into a blind panic. I lashed out any way I could.

My fist made contact with one of their heads and _actually went through_. It made a sickening squish like ramming my hand into a pumpkin filled with raw hamburger. It wasn't that I was particularly strong or anything, just the adrenaline of fear coursing through my veins.

I pulled my claw out just a second before a bullet ripped through the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's skull. Another shot maimed the dead one's companion.

The wound wasn't fatal. The two of them snarled, faces turned toward the dark figure at the top of the ladder.

"Our prey's escaping," the wounded enemy said to the uninjured one.

The first Ss'sik'chtokiwij shoved me into the ladder, diving into a flooded compartment at the end of the chamber.

When more shots rained down, its friend abandoned the fight as well, preferring the safety of the watery depths and its easy prey.

I glanced at my reflection in a polished chrome wall.

If what I saw could be trusted, everything appeared to be intact. I scowled at my inhuman face, and it responded in an identical way.

It's just a flesh mask, I told myself. It's not the real me.

I saw a dark object flit across the shiny surface, but when I glanced in that direction, it had gone. I found nothing there.

"Newt!" Lacy called. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah! You almost shot me, but I'm fine!" I paused. "Wait. How did you know my name?"

"I...don't know."

The water had been pouring in for some time, so when Lacy climbed down to where I was, we were both wading through a stomach high river that seemed to be ever rising.

I glumly placed my claw on the body of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij I killed.

I had committed murder.

I shouldn't have felt guilty, but now that I knew that Ss'sik'chtokiwij could be possessed by evil entities, and maybe had some kind of soul that needed saving, the death left a wrenching feeling in my gut.

"You were only defending yourself," Lacy said. "They were trying to kill you and your friends."

"That doesn't make it right."

"Cousin Ernie believes as you do, that each and every Ss'sik'chtokiwij needs to be saved-"

I opened my mouth to contradict her, but she spoke first. "A _terrorist_ needs salvation too, but the safety of others takes priority. Sometimes you must kill in order to save."

I noticed a man shadow occupying the surface along one of the walls, but saw no object capable of casting it. It remained still, as if watching us.

I pointed. "Do you see that?"

The shadow vanished like a mist.

"See what?"

"I close the lid to stop the water," I heard a voice calling from above. "I close it right now, okay?"

"Wait!" I cried, staring up the ladder. "What?"

I only caught a glimpse before the lid clanked shut and bolts were being noisily secured with an automatic drill.

Small woman, vaguely Asiatic facial features, indicating a parentage of three quarters of something else, but that was only my guess.

Vela Rols, the crazy lab assistant that always came in to do blood samples, the one who put in my new brain probes.

Those probes got inserted a couple weeks after they moved me into the Auriga. They decided my body had outgrown the original probes, so they sent Vela in. It was the first time we met.

She wheeled some horrible inquisitor's rack into the room, made me lie down while she strapped me in.

"Please get on table," she had said. "I do not wish to electrocute you."

"What?" I said. "I'm your favorite alien pet! Why would you elec-"

She zapped me with a cattleprod.

"I am sorry." She gave me a forced smile. "Table please."

"All right all right!" I cried, climbing onto her table.

She zapped me again for good measure.

"Hey! Stop it! I'm on the damn table!"

"Again. Very sorry."

She clamped metal restraints around my wrists and ankles, all of which seemed very S&M-y and not unlike The Rack.

"What the hell are you doing!" I demanded. "What is all this?"

"The probe in your brain...it is old and not so good, so we replace, okay?"

I struggled against the restraints, but they were pretty strong and I hadn't mastered the art of melting things. "Hey! Not cool! I don't want you playing around with my brain! Let me out of this thing!"

Wren came in with a cart full of nasty looking surgical instruments. I slammed my arms against the metal bands, trying to break them and get loose, but it didn't work.

"You bitch!" I yelled at the woman.

Unable to break free, I slumped flat on the rack. "Please! Let me go! This is cruel and inhumane!"

Vela leaned over me, giving me an apologetic (actually, more like _semi-apologetic_ ) smile. "I am not your enemy..." She paused like she had to read from a cue card. "... _Newt._ I am only a friend who wishes to help the probes in your head to stay on."

I tried to make my alien face reflect the most incredulous expression I could muster. _"Your friend?_ Seriously? A _friend_ wouldn't do that!"

Vela gave me the kind of look a bank teller gives someone who overdrafted their account and wants to have a thousand dollars floated until next pay day. The one that's usually prefaced by a cute little noise and an ` _About that..._ ' "Your old friends may not, but I am not your old friend. I am a ` _new friend_ ,' and I put probes in your brain, okay?

"Be careful and lay still. I do not wish to damage you. You do not wish to be damaged either, so you will not move, okay? You will stay in place and I will help you."

Lacy caught me staring up the ladder. "Is that your friend?"

I shook my head. "I don't know what she is...other than annoying."

She laughed.

I heard a muffled explosion, reminding me of a depth charge from a war movie. The entire station rocked like we'd been been hit by an earthquake.

"What was that!" I shouted.

"I don't know, but I think your friends are in trouble."

I frowned at the entrance to the lower floor. "I'm not sure I can breathe and scent at the same time. Any clue about where they're trying to swim to?"

"They're going through the kitchen. There's supposed to be a freight elevator about ninety feet from here."

I eyed her with suspicion. "What are you? Why do you know so much?"

Blank look. "What do you mean?"

"You know how to bypass a security lock, shoot a gun, and the layout of this ship. _How?_ "

She shrugged. " _It just comes to me_. It is like a drowning man at sea reaching for the nearest available object with which to keep afloat, and discovering it is a yacht. My sea is amnesia."

"It seems we have something in common, but I don't get a yacht."

Lacy smirked a little. "For some reason, it seems appropriate for me to say, _`Stop playing with your dinghy.'_ "

"Wait, _are you quoting_ Tommy Boy?" _Dad and his old movies._

She seemed to have no clue about what I was talking about. "What's that?"

"Never mind." I waded to the end of the room. "We should go. They're going to kill my..." What were they to me? Coworkers? Associates? ". _..friends."_

We went for a swim.

It was like diving into one of a big aquarium at one of those fancy nature parks, had someone removed all the fish and filled it up with cafeteria furniture. We swam over the long tables, navigated around dish carts, brushed aside the floating aluminum trays, the disgusting liquefied remnants of people's dinners.

I, who had never gone swimming before in my lift, felt almost giddy at the ease in which my new body took to the water, and would have enjoyed myself, had there not been so many horrible things happening.

My new friends were fleeing for their lives.

Although someone had apparently blown one of the pursuing Ss'sik'chtokiwij to bits with a rocket or other explosive, the second one remained, and it swam a lot faster than any of them.

Ms. Hillard, at the rear, could not keep up.

She screamed, expending precious air as the Ss'sik'chtokiwij latched onto her foot, dragging her away to her death.


	19. Chapter 24: Sharks

Sabra's companions had abandoned her, but you couldn't exactly blame them. Their lungs were running low on air, and a human couldn't win a wrestling match with a Ss'sik'chtokiwij. I suppose somebody could have tried blowing up our enemy like they did the other one, but they might have vaporized Ms. Hillard in the process, or drained the whole area into the void of space.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij paid no attention to me and Lacy at first, intent on taking the human off somewhere and killing her. I shook my companion's shoulder, pointed to the enemy, then myself, pantomimed wavy hair, gestured to the end of the room. I could only hope she interpreted it as `I'll take care of the monster, you get Sabra out of here.'

Lacy shook her head, indicating her gun, nonverbally saying, `I got this.'

We didn't have air, so I couldn't get an explanation, or argue that I didn't know where to take the woman.

The only thing I could think to do in way of argument was to swim at our enemy, wrench the human captive out of its clutches, and hope that Lacy would get the hint.

I clawed the enemy Ss'sik'chtokiwij's head, pulling its arms away from the victim.

You need at eight feet of distance to slow down a bullet's trajectory underwater.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of drag underwater, so no one is truly a quick draw. The weapon was out of her claws before she could get in a good shot, the bullet bouncing harmlessly of a wall in aqueous slow motion.

I wrestled our enemy, forcing her away from Sabra. When I caught Lacy glancing my way, I nodded to the victim, hoping she'd get the idea.

Instead, she picked up the rifle, swimming around me to get a clear shot.

I and my enemy stirred up the water with our death dance, me trying to keep out of Lacy's sights, the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij trying to force me into the crosshairs.

Lacy fired twice. My enemy spasmed, its yellow acid blood exploding in a diffuse cloud. I imagine it would have damaged something or burned Ms. Hillard, but water decreases acid's potency.

I gestured for Lacy to take care of our victim.

She shook her head, nonverbally communicating, `No. You.'

I shook my head in frustration. We were rapidly running out of air. This was no time for this nonsense.

I clenched my fists, gave a dramatic shrug, telegraphing `How the hell am I supposed to do that?'

Lacy only pointed to Sabra, then to me, indicating I should take her somewhere and do CPR.

And how was I supposed to do that, exactly? I didn't know anything about the ship's blueprints, _I didn't even know CPR!_

I kept shaking my head no, saying `You' the best I could with words.

Lacy got so angry at me that I saw bubbles coming out of her mouth. She pointed behind me, indicating for me to go there instead.

Without another attempt at communication, she let out a gurgling frustrated growl, swimming away with the rapidly dying human.

Alone again, and free, it would have been great if I didn't have responsibilities, and wasn't in desperate need of oxygen.

Noticing subtle heat trails in the water from the passage of Johner and his companions, I swam that way, hoping they wouldn't shoot me for deserting my post.

I don't know how they got in without flooding the entire station, but I soon discovered I had company, and not the good kind.

I faced two of them, and despite psychological diagnosis to the contrary, I only had one of me, and I needed to breathe sometime.

I decided the best plan would be to regroup with the others (or at least get some air before they started firing at me).

Instead of trying to kill me, the two strangers gave me the brush off, the first shoving me into a bulkhead. I could tell they were after my friends.

Not knowing how I'd be able to stop both of them, I gave chase anyway. I sincerely hoped Johner's friends still had some tricks (and guns) up their sleeves.

The heat trail and the aliens lead me to an open pressure door that the team had apparently pried open in their haste to escape to safety. Beyond lay a tunnel, illuminated from above by ugly green light.

I saw a flash, felt a shockwave travel through the water.

A brief survey of the scene gave me a picture of what had happened just minutes before.

Johner's team, desperate for air, had swum up to the green light, only to be thwarted by a slimy tarpaulin-like barrier made by Ss'sik'chtokiwij. After some frantic clawing, they ripped a hole in it, only to find the mouth of the opening surrounded on all sides by socmavaj eggs.

A socmavaj or _facehugger_ , had launched itself upon one of them, and now it lay belly up on the bottom of this huge `fish tank.' My Ss'sik'chtokiwij body could sense that the socmavaj had not delivered its payload of eggs, indicating that a person or persons of considerable strength had somehow wrenched the thing away from the victim's face at just the right time, then ripped out its vital organs so it no longer moved.

Someone had fired a weapon, and now the room above me was ablaze, the eggs lighting up like Roman candles.

I could see Christie climbing a ladder with Vriess strapped to his back, the others already making their way up the higher rungs, nearing the top.

I surfaced, got a lungful of air.

The first of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij had already joined my associates on the ladder. I jumped up and grabbed her by the tail, dragging her into the water, but its sister swam past me, launching herself through the hole, to where the humans were.

There was nothing I could do. I had my hands full fighting the one I had. I could only pray that Johner and Christie's macho tough guy routine wasn't just an act.


	20. Chapter 25: Mary Jorden

Submerged and fighting a Ss'sik'chtokiwij, my mind went back to the moment of my death, the shattering cryo pod, the suffocating feeling of the socmavaj egg passing between my lips, down my throat, the sensation of drowning as the pod malfunctioned and flooded around me, then my first vision from my new alien body, watching my human self drown and die from a ruptured chest cavity.

I ate myself. I'm not proud of it, it was a necessity. I left just enough of my body behind for Ripley to give a good burial.

I wanted to see Ripley, I wanted her to hold me and comfort me, but when I saw my reflection, I became afraid. Of the rejection, or worse. So I fled to the only one who I thought would understand. Ernie. Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij I wrestled looked just like her when she was younger.

I remembered curling up in Ernie's arms, her voice soothing me in my moment of terror. The memory stirred tender feelings in my heart, even as my enemy clawed at my face and tried to drown me.

"There are many things I could have done better," Ernie had told me. "I tried to convert my brethren with language when I had a way to communicate directly with their minds. If I had only thought to use my ssujmarrux, a lot of unfortunate deaths would not have occurred."

I surfaced for air, and my enemy followed me, grabbing my head, pulling me under.

I wiggled free, surfaced, gasped in a lungful of oxygen. It was awful, on account of all those burning eggs. I coughed, got my bearings.

When the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij came close, I kissed her.

I know, kind of weird, but it was the only way I could get my mouth worms into the other alien's brain.

Not as easy as it sounds. It wasn't like sex, it was like surgery. I had to find the equivalent of an olfactory fossa and ethmoid bone and interface with the nerves.

My enemy bit down. Only by a minor miracle did they not get severed before I made contact with her brain.

Upon facing the onslaught of my unquiet mind, her jaw relaxed, leaving my worms bruised but undamaged.

She recoiled at the wall of human words that I used to describe my world, tried to flee, but found herself trapped in my memory palace.

Her tail knocked my mental MP3 player to the floor, and the room filled with the sounds of The Electric Prunes' _Sold to the Highest Bidder_ , further frightening her.

She backed into a corner, gawking at my human self image. "What the hell are you?" the general gist of her mental communication.

I showed her the memory of my death, my rebirth.

She panicked, called me diseased. _Xulrubdan._

But then I showed her Ernie, the conflicted emotions I had about her, the strange sort of motherly affection Ernie lavished upon me.

Mom.

The word, the concept, it meant the same exact thing to both of us.

In fact, we thought of the same individual as mother, for although I repressed the memory, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik did serve as my mother when Ss'sik'chtokiwij had murdered my real one. It all came to the fore as we shared ourselves.

She had no name. She'd been born away from Ss'sik'chtokiwij contact. Her hatred of human beings stemmed from the hell the scientists put her through. I showed her that not all humans are bad, not all of them do things like putting probes in my brain, that there was Mozart and Mister Rogers and J.K. Rowling.

For a moment, she broke my illusion, staring up through a hole at my friends.

They were all trapped on the ladder, in a room full of blazing fire.

Vriess fired a few shots at the Ss'sik'chtokiwij climbing up after him, but ran out of bullets.

I wasn't the master of any sort of mental combat, so my motives quickly became transparent. She knew I wanted to save my human friends, sensed I wanted to kill her to protect them.

I felt the anger, the hatred blasting me.

"You're delaying me," said the Ss'sik'chtokiwij connected to me. "You're trying to keep the prey all for yourself."

No, I protested, communicating my caring and worriment.

The vibe I got back felt like a condescending "vegetarian" insult.

"Look around you," I urged, indicating the construct.

She responded with a disgusted image of a cow and a chicken compiling a novel on a typewriter.

My response: One of those old Chik Fil A advertisements that said, "Eat mor chikn." The resulting chuckle eased some of the tension between us.

Christie climbed the ladder, the smaller man strapped to his back, firing shots at the advancing Ss'sik'chtokiwij. The creature nimbly dodged them, the bullets straying into the fire or hitting the water, one of them grazing my shoulder plates.

They could easily kill us both, thought the one connected to me.

It will be worth it, I thought in response. If I can save their lives.

I sent an apology, assured the Ss'sik'chtokiwij that I'd rather not kill her, if I could somehow convince her not to harm my friends.

I sensed a hunger, then felt a new lust rush through my body, one that I'd never known before, a desire to lay eggs in their bodies.

I protested, communicating the wrongness, the sin of such an act, that we _can_ control our bodies.

I showed her images from horror movies where people practiced cannibalism, people going to jail, then Jesus on a cross, carolers singing The First Noel at Christmastime.

Overwhelmed with emotion, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij sneezed and coughed.

Suddenly I found we were not alone in my mental construct. A man from the darkness grabbed me around the throat, shoving me into a wall.

This was happening in our brains, the temples of our spirits. I learned this, and how ineffective my struggles were when I tried to physically fight back.

Although able to imprison me somehow, the man was insubstantial. Whenever I attempted to escape his vice-like grip, my hands went right through. The thing quickly overcame me. My only hope was to persuade this nameless Ernie Junior before me to help me, or maybe experience a conversion like Opvossu Jesus.

I visualized a memory of people at Hadley's Hope Church singing Amazing Grace.

I recalled my near death experience, my encounter with Jesus and my family members.

The man from the dark clenched his hands tighter, and it was like he not only attacked me, he drained my spirit, made me doubt and question everything.

My memories of the afterlife - were they mere figments caused by my alien brain misfiring? Was I never human? Was I imagining these demonic entities? The shadow kept telling me yes.

I struggled in the shade's iron grasp, my human self image deteriorating into a bug xenomorph exterior.

I recalled images of `Mom' (Ernie) praying, reading the bible, startling the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

"Mom does that?"

"The scientists made you an orphan," I thought, but then I sent a picture of a great family in heaven where mom and dad hug me and Ernie Junior.

"You really think so?"

The man made an image of mom and dad shooting us, but I showed Ernie Junior a painting of the Peaceable Kingdom, where the children play with a lion, and the lion didn't hurt them. I again showed them my parents embracing us.

Imagining myself in two places at once like The Flash, I gave Ernie Junior a virtual baptism, christening her Mary (It was the most biblical name I could think of) and Jorden as a last name (because I'd promised her hugs from mom and dad).

The shadow turned to dust.

When I disengaged my mouth tentacles, Mary Jorden drifted limply to the bottom of the chamber.

Oh no! I thought in horror. I drowned her!

I got a lungful of air, dragged her into the room above us.

Admittedly, a room full of flaming eggs and slime was not the best place to attempt CPR, but I didn't have much of a choice. I located a relatively safe spot in the conflagration, laying the victim straight on her back.

"What the fuck?" I heard someone saying, but when I looked up, I saw whoever it was had too much going on to give me a second thought.

During my mental absence, Christie and Vriess had traded spots on the ladder, perhaps due to the smaller one running out of bullets.

Unfortunately, Christie had also depleted his ammunition, and now the Ss'sik'chtokiwij clung to his foot, ready to drag him into the depths and devour him. The burn marks on his face told me that he'd been able to hit the creature a few times, but not enough to kill it.

Christie struggled, but couldn't shake the thing loose. I could see the strain on Vriess's face as he fought to remain on the ladder.

"Get off my foot, bitch!" Christie shouted at the Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

I know, real persuasive, right? Obviously, the creature didn't go anywhere.

I would have rushed up there to help them, but I had already set about trying to pump water out of Mary's chest, attempting chest compressions, rescue breathing...

I thought for sure they would get torn by the Ss'sik'chtokiwij, lose their grip and fall into the water, but Johner chose that moment to go Kamikaze, _shooting at the enemy as he hung upside down by his feet._ "Die you motherfucker!"

His shots struck the alien right in the forehead, and its skull exploded, spraying more acid blood in Christie's face. His friend screamed.

This, unfortunately, did nothing to dislodge the foe from his foot. I could tell by the pained expression on Vriess's face that he couldn't hold the ladder much longer. Both he and Christie would certainly fall below.

The dreadlocked man pulled out a knife, sawing at the strap that held him to his friend.

"What are you doing?" Vriess cried. "Stop!"

Christie didn't say a word, he just cut through the rest of it and let himself fall.

"No!"

I don't think anyone could see me behind the burning eggs. Either that, or they were just waiting for an opportunity to shoot me.

I frowned at my drowning victim. It didn't look like any of my efforts had accomplished anything. Although I'd been able to turn her over and get some of the water out, I didn't know where an alien's diaphragm was, and Mary wasn't any closer to breathing than when I started.

With a sigh, I jumped in the water, hoping I'd have better luck with Christie.

I found the man sinking like a rock near the bottom as he struggled to pry the Ss'sik'chtokiwij claws off of his foot. I swam down to help him.

The man drew his knife, but I flashed him the peace sign and helped him.

I'm not really sure what happened after that, for all of a sudden that little black haired android came falling into the water with a splash, milky white coolant trailing out a hole in her stomach. It looked like she'd been shot.

Since she didn't appear to be any worse for wear (I know from experience that an android can take a lot more abuse than a person) I waved to her, pointing to the ladder.

She shook her head no, directing me to a secondary passageway.

Christie made the same gesture I did, pantomiming "Why?" He'd lost one eyeball to the acid, but the other seemed functional enough for him to see the response, at least a little.

It was hard for either of us to convey a good message submerged, but Call got the point across by gesturing no, pointing to her wound, acting like she were reading a wristwatch, shaking her head.

The man gazed upwards with apprehension.

After popping up a moment to fill our lungs, we dove back down, swimming in the direction Call indicated.

We swam through a submerged hallway, crew quarters or something, judging by the doors and floating personal effects, arriving at an elevator. I don't think it was the same elevator we were supposed to take to the roof of the station, but Call had paused there, attempting to pry it open with her fingers, so I and Christie helped.

We had a pretty tough struggle on our hands. The wall of water resisted our efforts, and then when we finally got the thing open, we had to fight the tide to get the damn thing shut.

At last, we were in a relatively safe position on a maintenance ladder, gasping and panting for air.

"Oh my God," Christie cried. "What the fuck happened back there?"

Call leaned on the ladder, resting for a moment. " _Wren shot me._ I thought he was going to shoot a lock open, but he just said I was too trusting and turned the gun on me."

"You should have let me go up there. I would have _killed the son of of a bitch!_ "

"With what weapon? I saw you run out!"

"I'm _sure_ Johner and the others had something I could have used. Now everyone thinks I'm dead!"

"Look. We can clear this up once we get to where we're going. We're both looking for the Betty anyway."

"Seriously? You really believe after all that ass backwards shit Wren fed us, we're really going to meet up with the guys again?"

Call shrugged. "Anything's possible. C'mon." She climbed higher.

We reached an elevator hatch, pried it open.

It seemed we had accessed a restricted floor.

It looked like a morgue, but someone had covered the walls with arcane symbols, some of it in blood. The floor was a maze of occult graffiti, signposted by artful arrangements of salt, skulls, black candles and bloody human body parts.

Some of the body parts looked like something taken from a frost giant in one of those Hobbit movies, big, scary and pale. I have no idea what planet they'd been taken from, or if they'd been grown in a tank, but they were hideous.

"The fuck?" Christie muttered as he took it all in.

A pair of gold obelisks stood in the center of this macabre tableau, their arrangement suggesting a gate.

The obelisks did not resemble anything I'd ever seen before. Although the design shared characteristics with serpents and certain times of marine life, they truly didn't look like any of them, as if some alien intelligence had crafted them.

I didn't know these pillars were functional until a giant centipede-like beast materialized out of the air between them, enveloping Christie in its massive tentacles. He vanished with a shriek.

The black circle surrounding the obelisks was decorated all around with symbols that resembled astrological signs, but didn't match any of them.

When I stepped within the circle to see where Christie had been taken, I found myself staring into that icy intestine maze I'd gotten lost in a few hours previous.

"What...just happened?" Call asked.

A memory flashed through my brain.

When I had opened that door on LV 426 and seen the green light, it had been coming from these same obelisks.

I'd seen identical Satanic trappings there, including the blood sacrifices, but it hadn't been taken to such an extreme lengths, and the severed frost giant head was a new addition.

I used to think I dreamed that centipede monster.

Not anymore.

I frowned at the android, shook my head. "I...don't know."


	21. Chapter 26: Trust

Inside the ice maze, the centipede beast enveloped Christie in a slime cocoon, shoving him into a depression it had carved out of the surrounding wall.

Upon seeing this, Call genuflected and muttered a prayer.

"I think we definitely need some of that," I agreed, backing away from the pillars.

"What do we do?" the android asked.

"I don't know. I don't really have anything to kill it with. I'm thinking we should just sneak in and rescue him when the coast is clear...by the way, how does a synthetic become a Christian?"

She looked scared. "What makes you think I'm a synthetic?"

"Please," I groaned. "I can tell by the scent, and you were bleeding milk all over the place."

"It's coolant."

"Whatever. I've seen it before. How..."

"How did I convert? You're probably going to think I'm malfunctioning, that I'm crazy."

"Trust me, I barely know what sane is anymore."

Call took a deep breath. "Her name is Big Bird. She's an A.I. She led me to the Lord."

She paused, looking at me like she expected mockery. When she noticed no mirth in my expression, her eyes widened. "You don't seem surprised."

I smirked. "It seems we have a mutual friend."

Now she looked excited. _"You know her?"_

 _"We've met."_

I kept watching the creature.

It reminded me of something I'd seen in a Dungeons and Dragons manual.

The thing had a head like an ant, but with a mouth of razor sharp teeth and tentacle arms, its segmented body covered with squirming masses of mold gray hair resembling tapeworms.

A thing that looked like an elephant trunk came out of its body, attaching itself to Christie's face.

Enough is enough, I thought, clenching my fists.

I crept back into the circle, approached the gate. Call drew a knife out of her boot, offering it to me.

I shook my head. "Keep it. You might need it later."

The moment I passed between the pillars, Mr. Wren appeared before me, fixing me with a cold glare.

He said nothing, but it was clear he didn't want me to cross the threshold.

The pillars shattered into little pieces, severing our connection to the other world, and destroying any hope I had of rescuing our fallen comrade.

"What do we do now?" Call asked. "I didn't believe in black magic or the occult had any power until just now."

"I somehow don't think that's what we were looking at. Unless hell is another dimension in space, that you can somehow open with these gold things..."

"What about all those blood sacrifices?"

"People used to think they had to do stuff like that to make the sun rise."

Cal frowned. "At any other time, I'd agree with you, but in this particular case, it seems like exactly what someone did to make it work."

I gawked at her. "Are you _certain_ you're a robot?"

"I'm a second generation synth," she said. _"We're a little different._ "

 _"I'll say._ I feel I've been saying all your lines."

I picked up a piece of the broken obelisk. "So...do you think we can glue this together or something?"

I didn't get to hear Call's response. I had gone somewhere else.

It felt like I'd been electrocuted. A tingling sensation traveled through my body and...it was like I was floating out of my exoskeleton.

I drifted outside the Auriga, and it became like a dollhouse that I could see all the way through.

For a moment, I thought I could see every living thing in the craft. I saw Johner and his party hanging from the ladder as Ripley and Distephano, that brown soldier with the big chimp ears and fuzzy monkey hair, worked on prying open a locked pressure door.

I heard Ernie's voice calling, "Zeke, Jeremiah, Amos, Lammy, Matthew, Luke...", and parts of the ship would flash red for a moment.

That was all the information I got before the image faded and I was looking at something else.

It was like watching a movie unfold. I saw myself riding with my parents in a rover on Archeron that fateful day when they found the alien egg that killed them. This time when Daddy approached the thing, and its slimy flaps opened up, I ran out in front of him with a flame thrower, turning the egg into a giant fireball.

Another scenario flashed before my eyes: Ripley took us aboard the Sulaco, but this time she did a sweep of the vehicle, blowing the Queen away with a rocket launcher. We took escape pods out of there, but instead of landing on a prison planet, we landed on a planet filled with toxic gas, and we died.

The vision that followed had us burning up in a sun or a gas giant, and in a jungle wilderness where we had to live on exotic plants, disgusting looking alien bugs, eventually dying from an incurable disease.

I saw the big fight between Ripley and the Queen, but Ernie was there, fighting alongside her. The two aliens grappled with each other as they drifted into the void of space. Unfortunately, Ripley got sucked out the airlock and died along with them.

The visions got weirder. I saw furry humanoid aliens with long opossum tails. They rescued Ripley and I from the Queen during our battle in the cargo bay, flying us away in their spaceship as the Sulaco exploded.

I saw one where these aliens adopted me, just as I am, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij, or as a little human girl, after they had somehow rescued me from Hadley's Hope after my parents' death. We landed on a jungle planet with one of them. One vision had the Queen alive, but she was friendly, and she lived among my rescuers and a bunch of feline looking aborigines in loincloths.

This is some kind of Multiverse thing, I thought to myself as I saw all of this. Parallel universes where I choose one thing instead of another and everything's different, like in all those comic book movies. I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd seen myself as a Green Lantern or a Jedi Knight hanging out with Doctor Strange or Darth Vader.

"Newt? Hello! Sulaco to Newt!"

I dropped the gold object, struggling to focus. "Sorry...I was... _seeing things._ "

I paused. "I think I know where your friends are."

"We should go," Call said. "Unless one of your visions told us how to save Christie."

I shook my head. "But I _do_ have a hunch about where the others are, if I can look at a blueprint of the ship..."

"Let me see if I can find one." Call marched to the end of the chamber, activating a medical database system.

I watched with fascination as her fingers flew across the buttons like Data on Star Trek, bypassing menus and security systems to connect to the ship's mainframe.

The moment the blueprint came up, I knew exactly what section to tap with my claw.

"If I were an older model," said Call. "I'd say your subconscious just picked up the layout from memory."

"What does the newer model say?"

She only shrugged. "A synthetic doesn't necessarily know everything."

"Did Christie know what you were?"

Call nodded. "He caught me charging up one time. I told him what I was, but he just said `That's cool' and didn't tell anyone."

She smirked. "I think he kinda liked me... _and maybe I liked him._ "

We only got to look at the blueprint for a moment before the computer shorted out.

"Someone knows what we're doing," Call said.

She unlocked a pressure door.

I followed her down a dark corridor, winding around piles of debris. "What's all this mess?"

"It's probably the soldiers." Call pointed to a dead body with an assault rifle clutched in his arms.

"What do we tell Johner and the others?" I asked. "About Christie?"

Call frowned. "We don't. Dead is dead. I'll figure something out."

"I saw something else in those visions," I said. "Actually, it was a voice. It told me to help a bunch of people. Zeke, Lammy, Matthew, Mark and Luke..."

"It could be bible verses brought up by your subconscious. Maybe you just left the punctuation out. I mean, there's a difference between `Let's eat, people' and `Let's eat people.' Take out the comma and it implies cannibalism. Just a thought."

I frowned. "I don't think that's it somehow."

"I don't know, then. With the exception of Lammy, those are common names. I'd have to check the computer...we're here."

We turned a corner, stopping in front of a pressure door.

Call opened it, revealing the room with the smoldering alien eggs. Johner and his ragtag band of misfits, still hanging on the ladder, stared at us in shock.

"This way," Call told him.

The men hurriedly climbed through the door, joining us in the tunnel.

"Wait," Johner said, staring at the android. "How are you alive?"

"I had help."

Ripley stepped close to her, sniffed deeply, then stuck her fingers in Call's gunshot wound.

She frowned when she noticed coolant dripping from the ends of her middle and index fingers. "You're a robot."

If I had eyebrows, I would have raised them. "You seriously didn't know? You didn't smell all that chemical shit?"

I turned my head toward Call, trying to look apologetic. "Sorry. I only meant-"

"It's fine." Her face told me it wasn't. _"I smell artificial. I get it."_

"Son of a bitch!" Johner said.

Ripley put a hand on her hip. "I should have known. No human is that humane."

Like a drill sargent chewing out a subordinate, Johner invaded Call's personal space, leering at her. "I thought synths were supposed to be all logical and shit. You're just a big old psycho girl!"

"You're a Second Gen, aren't you?" Vriess asked.

"You're an _Auton_!" said Distephano. "That's right! I remember! They were supposed to revitalize the synthetic industry, but instead they buried it." The man examined Call like she were a flashy sports car. "They don't like being told what to do. I heard the government ordered a recall."

He poked her chest. "I heard just a few had gotten out intact. Never thought I'd actually see one."

Purvis rolled his eyes. He looked very scared, very sick. "Great. She's a toaster oven. Can we leave now?"

Ignoring him, Johner turned to face me. "The droid ain't the only suspicious shit around here."

The man brought his boot down on my clawed foot. "I thought we told you to stay back and guard the place so those other freaks didn't come down and kill us."

I could have easily flipped out my tongue claw thing and punched a hole in his forehead. His boots didn't even hurt my feet, but the guy had a way of intimidating anyone, like a puffer fish, and I _did_ want to impress him, because he reminded me of dad. "I'm sorry. I'm not as tough as you think I am. There were too many of them."

"A man is dead because of you!" he snarled.

I opened my mouth, closed it again. If Christie wasn't dead already, he would be dead soon. Telling Johner about it would only get them to delay further, possibly get more of the team killed. "I'm sorry. _I tried._ "

Johner pressed his gun to my face. "You know what?" he said through his teeth. _"I don't think you tried hard enough!_ I think you've been _playing us_ this whole time with your little guard dog routine, all the while letting all your alien friends in to slaughter everyone!"

"It's not like that!" I cried. "Just because I'm not strong doesn't mean I'm the enemy! I'm just out of shape!"

"Yeah? Then why were you giving your alien buddy CPR instead of trying to help us?"

I swallowed. I _knew_ someone had seen me. "I was trying to get her on _our side!_ " I sighed. "It doesn't matter. She's dead anyway."

 _"Well thank God for that!"_ he pulled the hammer back on the gun. "That was your plan all along, wasn't it? Get us to let our guard down so your friends could pick us off with ease. _Wasn't it!_ "

"No!" I yelled, coughing when I really meant to cry, because that's what my body does when it's sad.

The man backed away suddenly. "God! _You didn't tell me you were sick!"_

"I..." I glanced at Call, but she only shrugged.

That's when Ripley stepped in between us. " _That's right, she's sick!_ Do you expect a _sick animal_ to always perform at the top of its game?"

I forced a few coughs for dramatic emphasis.

Johner frowned, holstered his weapon. _"You could have at least said something."_

"She's a fighter." Ripley ran a hand over my dome. " _She's a good girl, but she doesn't always know her limitations until it's too late."_

"Wait," said Purvis. _"It's sick,_ right? What's to keep that thing's germs from spreading? I think you had the right idea before, _it needs to be put down!_ "

"What are you shitting about?" Johner asked. " _You got one of those things inside you._ Can't get much worse than that!"

"Yeah? Well fuck you! I think it fucking can!"

"Yo, he's right!" said the soldier. "If that thing's sick, I don't want it sneezing all over me..."

"I'll cover my mouth," I blurted.

Ripley patted me on the back. "Relax, everyone. _It's not contagious._ "

"Says you!" Distephano argued.

Johner raised his voice to compete with the others. "Look! Say it is sick, and it's contagious. Does that necessarily mean it's a bad thing?"

"I'd say it is."

"I and I say you're wrong. Hey, Devil's advocate, what if we can use it like some kind of biological weapon against these things?"

The soldier stared at him, falling silent.

"I like it," said Vriess. "Send them their own Typhoid Mary."

"Did I mention it's not contagious?" Ripley insisted.

"How much time before we land?" asked the dwarf.

"Just under two hours."

Johner stared at Call's oozing wound. "You got a socket wrench? _Maybe she just needs an oil change._ "

He leaned in closer. "I can't believe I almost fucked you."

 _"Like you've never fucked a robot,"_ Vress mocked.

Distephano pushed buttons on a security keypad, attempting to unlock a nearby door. It didn't work.

"If Wren can get in the computer," Ripley said. "He can really screw us."

The soldier banged his fist on the door.

"Can you find a terminal?" Johner asked.

"There's no console on this level, and I don't know anyone else's access codes. We have to go back."

Ripley shook her head. "We can't go back."

"What about the route Call and _that thing_ took to get here? Does any part of that cut through?"

Distephano looked pained. " _Maybe._ But it's gonna slow us down. We'd miss our window."

"Can't be any slower than this!"

I led him back the way I came, but our travel came to an abrupt end at an emergency fire door. It seems, in our absence, it had dropped down across the corridor, barring our passage. The thing was too thick for me to do anything with.

"Shit," Johner muttered, returning to the group.

Purvis and Distephano had found a crowbar, attempting to pry the door open, but it wasn't working.

Vriess waved me over. "I've seen your kind melt holes through the floor. How about helping us with this lock?"

I crossed my arms. "Wouldn't that be like trying to pick a safe with a screwdriver? What happens if that just ruins the lock and traps us out here?"

Vriess swore in frustration.

Johner suddenly looked intrigued. "Wait. What do _you_ know about picking a safe?"

I shrugged. "Just what they show on TV."

 _"Call..."_ Ripley said, her tone of voice implying what needed to be done.

"No. I can't."

"You're the model droid. You can access the mainframe by remote."

"I can't! I burned my wifi chip. We all did."

"You can still patch in manually," said Vriess.

Distephano dropped the crowbar. "There's ports in the chapel, aren't there?"

 _"Call..."_ Ripley urged.

The robot sighed.

The ship's chapel was pretty basic. A steel cross affixed to one wall, a cluster of folding chairs and a pulpit, their musical accompaniment consisting of electric keyboard and a stereo.

Call crossed herself as she entered.

Ripley gawked at her. "You're programmed to do that?"

The android swallowed. "Don't make me do this."

"Don't make me make you."

"I don't want to go in there. It's like my insides are liquid. It's not real."

"It's the only way."

I placed my claw on Call's back. "I'm here for you."

"Thanks. _If only you could go into the system with me..._ "

In addition to paper bibles, the chapel had the computerized kind that hooked up to a charger. As you may or may not know, a charging port can be hacked, and used as a tool to get into people's cel phones. All Call had to do was plug the cord into her body, and she had access to the system.

The robot looked anxious. I gave her hand a little squeeze.

"Get over it," Ripley said. "We can blow the ship before it reaches earth, kill them all. Just give us time to get out first."

I frowned at her. "Why do we have to kill them? Not all Ss'sik'chtokiwij are bad."

`You are so naive' the expression on her face seemed to say. "Generally I'd agree with you, but unless you can convince every one of them on the ship not to kill us, I don't think we have a choice."

"Dammit," Call growled, apparently frustrated by the security system or something else in the ship's computer.

"Anything?"

"Hold on."

The android's eyes rolled back in her head. "The bridges to Sector Seven, Three and Nine are unstable. Engines at forty one percent. We only have eighty six minutes until earth dock."

She clenched her fists. "We've burned too much energy. I can't make critical mass! I can't blow it!"

"Then crash it," Ripley said.

I wondered if there were a better way, if we could somehow just incapacitate the soldiers at earth dock or something, contain the aliens there, but I didn't have a good plan.

In the corridor outside, I could see Purvis spasm, clutch his chest like something were about to burst out. The others pointed guns at him.

He slowed his breathing, recovering from the episode. "I'm okay, I'm okay! I feel good!"

"Doesn't look good to me," I muttered.

"I recalibrated our route for a collision with Antarctica," said Call. "Anything that survives will drown or freeze to death before reaching a populated area. We've got forty three minutes."

Ripley nodded. "Try to clear a path to The Betty and start her up."

I heard whirring, humming sounds. The others cheered as the locked security door slid open.

Call scowled. "Someone's doing an emergency override on Console 45V on Level One. They're trying to board The Betty!"

She glared, seemingly at nothing. "Father's dead, asshole!"

The android paused, as if listening to someone. "Intruder on Level One! All aliens please proceed to Level One!"

Ripley grinned. "You've got a mean streak."

Call unplugged the cable. "You must think this is pretty funny."

"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they should be."

"Why do you go on living? How can you stand being what you are?"

Ripley shrugged. " _Not much choice._ "

"At least there's a part of you that's human. _Just look at me. I'm disgusting!_ "

 _"Seriously?"_ I said. " _You're_ disgusting? I drip slime everywhere, and _sneeze when I'm sad!_ You can at least fool people into thinking you're human, _go on dates! Sleep with people!_ "

"Wait," Call stammered. "You're not actually sick?"

I groaned, rubbed my face. "That's what you got out of that?"

Not wanting someone to shoot me, I changed the subject. "My point is, you're too pretty and intelligent to be this insecure."

Call smiled. "Thank you. You're kind."

"And you don't really smell that terrible. It's a _clean smell_. A lot better than B.O."

The android rolled her eyes. "Thanks. I guess."

"Call, why did you come here?" Ripley asked.

"To kill you, remember? Before the recall, I accessed the mainframe. Every dirty little co-op the government ever dreamed of is in there, and this, you, the aliens...even the crew from The Betty. I knew if they succeeded, it would be the end of them."

"Why do you care what happens to them?"

"It's our algorithm. A normal computer thinks in terms of ones and zeros. My programming has a variable called Mu, an in-between, which gives us the capacity for emotions like love."

"Does that make you an asshole," Ripley asked. "Or are you the new asshole model they're putting out?"

Call smirked. "C'mon. Let's go."

We hurried through the newly opened security door, running down a corridor with grated flooring, bringing Vriess along by means of fireman's carry. I offered to help, but the little guy looked like he'd rather crawl to his spaceship than let me touch him.

Purvis clearly showed signs of fatigue. "God, I'm so tired!"

"Sleep when you die, man," Johner grunted, shifting Vriess in his arms.

He stepped in a puddle of slime, frowned at the translucent ooze clinging to his boot.

"Oh no!" said Purvis. "This is bad, right?"

Ripley sniffed, brushed the grating with her foot. "I think we're near the nest."

"Let's go another way," Vriess suggested.

Call shook her head. "We don't have time."

 _"We've got ninety minutes!_ "

"Not anymore."

Johner set the little guy down. "What are you saying, robot? What did you do?"

Ripley marched a few steps ahead of us. "We're wasting time. Let's go."

"Hey, man," Johner said. "If you want to die here with your little brothers and sisters, that's cool, but I plan to live past today. If this little hunk of plastic is pulling any shit, I'm going to kill her, then kill you."

He glowered at Call. _"Does that compute with you, or do I need to draw a schematic?_ "

Ripley grabbed him around the neck, pried his mouth open. It looked like she intended to rip out his tongue.

She smiled at the android. "Want another souvenir?"

Call shook her head, and the man was released.

We continued running.

"How far are we to the docks?"

"One hundred yards," Distephano gasped.

All of a sudden, Ripley stopped in the middle of the corridor.

She sniffed, knelt down, pressed her face to the grated flooring.

"Ripley," Call cried. "We have to go."

 _"I hear them. They're so close!"_ She laid flat, listening closer. " _It's The Queen! She's in pain!_ "

A pair of claws pulled the grating open beneath her, and she dropped into darkness.

"Ripley!"

I leaned over the hole, squinting to see into the shadows.

I tried to use my heat vision, but it was all a mass of red.

"Newt?" called a familiar voice.

I swallowed. "Mom, I mean, _Ernie?_ "

I heard a purring noise. "I can see you at last. You've grown into a very beautiful Ss'sik'chtokiwij."

"Thanks," I stammered. "I, uh, can you come up here?"

A long pause answered me.

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

My eyes focused, and I saw faint outlines of a grotesque, swollen, serpentine mess of...I don't know what.

I caught sight of Ripley standing in the middle of it, cradled in the arms of a massive insect body, which seemed to be...growing out of all that stuff.

The body waved to me.

"Ernie, is that you?"

"Yes, child."

I climbed into the hole, dropping onto the slippery mass. It felt like standing on a nest of fat boa constrictors.

The woman was kissing the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij on the neck, caressing her body. I shuddered. "What's going on here?"

"I never thought I'd make use of this particular expression, but I believe it is appropriate. Ahem. _`It's complicated.'"_

I groaned. "Ripley, we should go. The ship is scheduled to crash into the earth in a matter of minutes."

Ripley shook her head, hands still roving the alien's exoskeleton. "Leave us."

 _"Fine,"_ I muttered. _"Your funeral."_

I reached up to grab a section of grating, but stopped short of climbing it. "Wait. I, uh, saw a vision. I heard your voice saying names. Zeke, Jeremy, Amos, Lammy, John and Luke. Ring any bells?"

The woman stared at me. "Those names... _sound familiar._ "

"They are the names of my four eldest children!" Ernie cried. "And the two children of Sil. With the exception of John, of course. His name is Matt."

"...Yes." Ripley seemed confused, but certain enough about what had been said.

"Sil? Who's that?"

"Scientists received a message containing genetic code from an unknown region of space. For some reason, they decided to graft it onto a human fetus.

"The female caused a lot of trouble before a special task force destroyed her. We had hopes of teaching her children to respect human life. We came here to rescue them, you, and my children, but we got captured."

Ripley looked troubled. "I don't remember any of this."

 _"It is the ECT,"_ Ernie sighed, brushing the woman's hair back. "Newt, it's possible I may die here. You must find my children, take them out of this place. Teach them the way of the Lord."

"Do you know where these... _children_ are being kept?"

"I'm sorry... _I've been busy, and they may have been moved._ "

 _"Maybe you can ask her younger children,"_ Ripley suggested.

She pressed her mouth to Ernie's, rubbing up against her. The alien didn't protest.

"Does the way of the Lord include what you're doing now?"

Ernie pulled her mouth away from the woman's. "I...do not know. We are in heat. I feel we should perhaps marry, but I do not know if this manner of reproduction will produce fruit. It would be illogical for me to consider infidelity, for our kind primarily reproduces by laying eggs in our victims.

"She really deserves a human mate, not just me. That being said, she seems convinced that her body is compatible to mine."

"Shut up and kiss me," Ripley growled to her.

I watched, with growing discomfort, as the giant snake things drew the woman's body deep into their folds.

"Wait," I said. "I only know of one way out of this place. There's a ship, but the guys who own it barely trust me! How do you expect me to take them anywhere?"

Ernie sighed. "I don't know. All we can do is pray."

"Oh my God," I heard Call saying as she watched...whatever the hell Ripley and Ernie were doing.

Purvis got really pale. "We've got to get moving."

I climbed back out. "Wait for me!"

"Let's get out of here!" Purvis exclaimed.

Call stood frozen at the hole, gawking at the events happening below. _"That's not right!"_

Purvis grimaced, tugged on her arm. _"I've been saying that all day."_

I followed the two as they ran down the corridor.

Purvis stopped, spun around to face me, his eyes rolling back in his head.

"There's been a change to the itinerary. We're taking your ship. Your friends will fly my passengers to base, or the shall die."

He raised his arms, causing glistening black bodies to shove open gratings and emerge from the floor.

Six large Ss'sik'chtokiwij had jumped out of the shadows, surrounding us. The possessed man smiled. _"Ready to cooperate?"_

Call screwed up her face, narrowing her eyes. "You're obviously under the influence of... _some evil force, and, what, I'm just supposed to trust you?"_

"You don't have a choice."

"What's the point? Even if we go along with your plan, people are going to die."

"Perhaps. But if you could _somehow manage to turn the station around,_ I might be _persuaded_ to let you leave on your ship with your surviving crew."

"And kill millions of people? No deal."

Purvis shrugged indifferently. " _I offered._ "

He raised an open hand, closed it in a fist. The Ss'sik'chtokiwij took this as a signal to gallop down the corridor in pursuit of my friends.

"Dammit!" Call cried, rushing to a wall panel.

"Guys," she paged over the PA system. "Something's happened. You've got company!" 

Purvis collapsed on the ground, screaming as he clutched his chest.


	22. Chapter 27: Quja Wuld

Note: Fanfiction net's upload system doesn't like to show asterisks or website addresses, so I probably confused everyone, due to not putting the alien terminology where the asterisks went. I just fixed the problem, so you might want to go back to the last chapter and try reading it again. That is, if you haven't already given up.

[0000]

* * *

It was just me against an army of aliens.

I don't have a prayer, I thought.

At the moment, dropping to my knees and saying one probably didn't seem like the most productive use of my time, but I figured it wouldn't hurt. After all, I kept it short, and intended to incapacitate at least one of my enemies right when I finished. If that was all I could manage, so be it.

I got up, wove my way through the pack, latched on to the tail of the leader.

I wrestled the female to the floor, kissed her, feeding my mind worms into her olfactory organ.

She bit down and snapped them off before I could establish a link. I screamed in pain.

"What are you doing!" my foe growled, pinning me on my back.

"Trying to save your soul," I whimpered."

"Our souls don't need saving. We _like_ the bodies we've taken. Now leave-"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij's body spasmed like she had developed severe Parkinson's, then froze. Her five companions, and Purvis, mirrored her.

All the lights in the corridor went dark.

A spotlight came on, illuminating an eyepatch wearing man in a white linen suit.

I recognized him immediately: That rich program director guy from _Airwolf_!

"Michael Archangel?"

Archangel winked at me with his good eye, flicking his finger at a speaker box attached to the ceiling.

I heard music. Specifically: Slade's _`Coz I Luv You'._

Okay, this is where it gets a little unbelievable, but I swear it happened. The guy, as portrayed by Alex Cord, started _dancing_.

Big Bird appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, accompanied by Ssunamrozedrah, Opvossu-Jesus, Lacy, and, to my absolute astonishment, Mary Jorden. They all had spotlights, dancing along with him.

Archangel waved me closer, and I ended up dancing all these shuffle steps and pivots and clapping in time with the beat.

Our six enemies didn't know what to think. When their bodies became unfrozen, they frowned, their necks craning to watch us in a quizzical manner, tails curling in question marks.

I probably imagined it, but I thought I even saw them dancing a couple times.

Near the end of the song, Archangel did a Michael Jackson spin and made a pair of bright feathery wings explode from his back, and for a moment I was blinded by his dazzling brilliance.

When my eyes focused again, I stood in the same exact spot he'd been standing in, doing the same exact pose, like I'd been the one leading the dance the whole time, and he'd never been there to begin with.

It seemed that my enemies had noticed the change too, for now they all growled at me.

Big Bird pointed to the speaker, using that same exact gesture Archangel had done a few minutes ago. "I love that song."

Shaking her head, she smiled, placed her hand on my shoulder plate. _"I admire your spontaneity._ Pillow taught you well!"

I trembled. Had it _been_ me this whole time?

"Wait. Who's Pillow?"

Big Bird frowned. "She _did_ tell me you sometimes called her aunt."

My memory had tricked me again!"

Admittedly, it didn't make sense for my rich aunt from LV 426 to come visiting me in a secret paramilitary research installation, but I guess my brain preferred a comfortable fantasy to a stranger, lonelier reality.

Pillow's light aqua colored hair was cut in pageboy style.

Her face looked like the result of a human and a guinea pig having a baby, but she had minus signs for eye pupils, like a goat.

She was an alien. She had a furry body and a tail. An Abreya from Pathilon, she said. I remember getting confused and calling her a Pathilonian and calling her planet Abreya.

Pillow... _knew me from before_ somehow, like we had met on Fury 161, but I didn't remember any of it.

When we first met (for the second time, I guess), she found me hiding in Big Blue, burrowed in the stuffing.

When I saw her head appear at the mouth of my hiding spot, my first instinct had been to pop out and drill a hole in her face, but I resisted the urge.

She smiled, waved to me like I weren't a scary maggot-like creature with razor sharp teeth. "Hello Newt! Remember me?"

"No..."

She reintroduced herself.

 _"Pillow Barnes?_ That...sounds like a bedding company."

Pillow gave a slight smirk, like she'd heard that one a lot. "Anyways, understandably, we haven't talked much since we arrived here. How are you holding up? Are you okay?"

I sighed. "I'm lonely. There's nothing to do. They won't even let me go outside."

She just smiled and put a hand on my shell.

In some ways, she too was like a mother to me. The researchers and most of the other people at the facility thought of me only as an animal to be studied, an attack dog to be trained to hunt down an enemy. Only Pillow saw me as a child in need of love, and an education.

She told me she spent more time with me than her regular children. She said the program forbade her from spending a long time with them, that the organization basically held them hostage, so she could advise them on their little projects. Projects like that space message they turned into DNA.

Every day she'd come in and give me lessons about something. Science, math, history, bible studies, music, art, sometimes even homemaking.

I liked our little extracurricular activities the best.

She read me passages from something called a `Gaxea', an alien bible that has an Abreya god creating the universe out of an explosion, sculpting her people out of a soup of amino acids.

She taught me strange alien songs, honestly, not very pretty by earth standards, but they used a different musical system, with frequencies humans and Ss'sik'chtokiwij aren't able to hear.

We did dances, exercises, things I probably would have continued to do if they hadn't taken me away from there and put me in the Auriga.

One time, Pillow showed me how to line dance. Said she always wanted to try it, but her husband David had been a "stick in the butt" (she hadn't mastered all our expressions yet, unless she meant it as a joke), and now the people in charge had separated her from him.

I wonder if she ever got out, or if she still remained a prisoner. I guess I'll never know.

Anyways, using videos, we practiced double heel digs, pivot turns, The Jazz Square...It sounds stupid, really stupid, but those were some of the best times I had as an alien. Better than that crappy time I had in the prison colony.

We danced to Brooks and Dunn's _Boot Scootin' Boogie_ and _I'm From The Country_ by Tracy Byrd. Mom loved those songs.

Pillow told me such beautiful stories about her homeworld. They rode giant birds, lived in modern glass and steel houses built in massive trees, ate exotic foods, flew futuristic spaceships...

Okay, so the point is, _she taught me how to dance_. _Pretty much like I did to impress my enemies._

Now that I remembered this, the fact that I knew how to dance didn't surprise me. The fact that the Ss'sik'chtokiwij had stopped moving to watch, that was astonishing.

There was something else. A memory unlocked by the memory.

Gausabin chapter 11 verse 9 of the Holy Gaxea describes something called the Wuldiha or `The Pillars of Quja-Wuld', golden posts that the prophet Chaz discovered on the mountain of Wuld.

According to the story, the fervent prayers of the faithful could open a pathway to God, or, in some instances, a promised land rich in abundance. The icons, in the possession of the right people, meant victory in battle.

The object could, however, be used for evil purposes. In chapter 11:280 for example, the evil Zuykas, greedy for material gain and caring nothing for the true calling of God, stole the sacred Wuldiha, but the object changed into something loathsome in appearance and turned against them.

Its portals took them to places that caused terror, dark, frozen, hellish worlds that even their bravest did not dare to enter, for fear of its dreadful beasts.

The object had faded into the mists of history like the Ark of the Covenant.

Somehow, impossibly though, this relic of the Abreya religion had been found again.

"Newt," Call scolded. "This isn't a good time to space out."

"The pillars of Quja-Wuld," I muttered.

"What?"

"You're carrying one of those gold rocks, aren't you?"

She pulled a glistening object out of her pocket. "How did you-?"

"Long story. No time to explain."

A Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a blotchy black and purple shell launched off the floor, attacking me.

I punched my enemy, shoving her off me.

When I got up, I heard Call shouting for help.

A Ss'sik'chtokiwij had pinned her to the floor, snapping its mouth fang at her head.

A memory flashed in my head, one of Ernie ripping out a fang like that. I recalled that strategy wasn't quite effective in saving the alien's soul.

Of course, Call's strategy of sticking her with a boot knife probably wasn't that great either.

During the scuffle, the android had accidentally dropped that gold thingy from the morgue. Although not the greatest weapon to wield in my claws, I figured hitting the enemy with it would at least take them on a magical mystery tour.

I raised the glittering rock, forcing myself to ignore the flashes of... _whatever_ long enough to strike the enemy in the skull.

It felt like being electrocuted.

My environment transformed into a high school gymnasium, decorated for prom, one with pressure sealed windows overlooking a rocky moon terrain.

This wasn't a room in my memory palace, it was a private fantasy, a daydream, something that left me naked and exposed. And someone had pulled it out and put it on display as easily as you'd set up a Monopoly board or a Christmas tree...the latter which, incidentally, had been included in my `Prom Date Playset.'

The room was empty, but the stereo system played _Time After Time_ , just like in all those movies.

It was freezing, icicles hanging from the ceiling, the air conditioning ducts and pipes thickly frosted with frozen condensation.

A shadowy figure stepped out of a mirror on the bandstand, garbed in a golden tiara and a stunning little black dress.

As she marched closer, I saw that she looked like me, at least, what I always wanted to be, tall, perfect skin, silky golden hair dolled up like a movie star. The fact that her face had no eyes didn't really bother me for some reason. I still felt envious of her beauty, and that dress, though made from alien and machine parts, looked sexy enough to attract just about anyone.

She smiled, stretched out her dress like she were modeling. "You like it? I can get you one just like it."

I looked down and saw I still had an alien body. "What good is that?"

 _"Let's talk about it."_

She led me over to a refreshment table, where a pile of delicious looking food had been set out.

She grabbed a big chicken drumstick from one of the serving trays, one dripping with barbecue sauce, smiling as she tore into it. My mouth watered as I watched her.

She giggled through her nose, indicating with a gesture that I should grab some food myself.

When I looked back at the buffet, it was covered in human body parts. They did that mirage-y thing you see in Porky Pig cartoons, you know, when his butt turns into a ham hock, or a cud chewing cow turns into a juicy T-bone steak.

I shuddered. "Wait. What is this? What are you trying to do?"

"Uh-oh!" the prom queen giggled nastily. _"Looks like_ someone _needs to get laid!..._ or, more accurately, _needs_ to _lay!_ "

I scowled at her in disgust.

"Oh don't give me that look! It's all over your face! _The moment you saw your friend down in that pit, you wanted it!_ "

The room suddenly populated with teenagers, each looking like extras from some high school romance movie or TV drama. My other self grabbed one of them, a generic clean cut young man she probably pulled from some program I watched.

She grabbed a random guy, more than likely from a memory I had of some TV program or movie I'd seen a long time ago, planting her lips on his mouth.

What she did next...it opened a doorway to temptation that I never knew existed.

The act was sexual, but not in the way a human being would understand it. To say I was turned on, excited by what I saw, expanded the definition of `horny' to include non-standard extraterrestrial reproductive equipment.

As my twin kissed the guy, he made gagging sounds as a large slimy object passed between his lips.

I saw his throat swell as he ingested the object, which I understood right away to be an egg, and actually got aroused.

You see, the man _smiled_ the whole time. He looked _happy_. And when the egg got deposited deep in his throat, he had this blissful, contented look like he'd just slept with someone, calmly lying down on the floor, unbuttoning his shirt to expose his chest.

It got even more erotic, again, not in a way that humans would understand, but in a way that stimulated things in my exoskeleton that I didn't even know the function of.

As if knowing my thoughts, the scene played out like sanitized pornography.

The man arched his back, like in the middle of sex, and a larva burst bloodless from a natural looking swollen mouth below his pecs.

The victim closed his eyes, appearing to enjoy his `little death.'

"See? _He liked it_ ," my twin purred.

I saw a flash of the same man with a grisly blood splattered crater in his rib cage, the larva chewing the hunks of bloody meat. It did the Porky Pig thing again, and the gore was gone, the victim and alien offspring artfully airbrushed and pretty looking.

 _"Give into it,"_ my twin urged, pushing another generic teen heartthrob in front of me. "You were born with these lusts. _Might as well enjoy them._ "

"No!" I stammered, but my legs trembled, and I was drooling.


	23. Chapter 28: Temptation

It looked so pretty.

Picture perfect.

Like a groom and a blushing bride in a honeymoon suite for the first time, the gruesome death stuff compartmentalized, cleaned up, neatly packaged like how the pork chops from the distribution place no longer look like the bloody mutilated carcasses of cute little animals they had originally been.

I was hungry, in heat, and my twin had just offered me a tempting morsel. Already the man was kissing and pawing on me like the bad boyfriend in some teen movie.

I shakily pushed him away, turning my attention back to the `snack table.'

"Help yourself," my twin said.

I stepped closer to the table, my stomach unpleasantly reminding me of my needs.

The barbecue looked good.

When I reached out to grab it, my dead brother appeared, shaking his head sadly. " _Man does not live by bread alone._ You of all people should know what that means."

I swallowed hard, thinking about the looting I'd done on LV 426, the stolen food. The unsalted peanuts.

I whimpered, turned my back to the buffet, but another temptation faced me now.

My twin, dead set on getting me to fail, gave me a mischievous smile, bringing the teen heartthrob back to me.

The boy resumed his kissing. I wanted to lay an egg in his chest so bad!

The moment I brought my mouth closer to his, I noticed a figure in a white suit standing beside me.

Alex Cord, with his trademark eyepatch glasses.

"Becky," he said in the gentle tones of a father consoling a daughter after a bad break up. "This is a need too, but you've got to _be strong and fight it_."

He put a hand on my shoulder plate. "Look, the right time and place will come for... _those kinds of things_ , but it isn't now. Especially not when your friends are in danger. You have to be patient. You can't let this thing take advantage of you."

I nodded. "Thanks."

I knelt in prayer, asking God to remove this evil entity from my presence.

As I did this, I felt the presence of another individual, a strange Ss'sik'chtokiwij, who, up until this point, had only been watching my little exchange from afar.

Why is it bad to kill humans? It asked me in my mind.

I used to be one, I sent back. Your kind killed my family...but I forgive you.

Why do you forgive me?

I was about to respond, but she saw my next thought.

You know mother!

I used to think the best about Ernie. Just because her family killed a bunch of people didn't mean she herself was wicked and evil.

I trusted her. Considered her a friend.

At Hadley's hope, I used to hang out with a kid named Sarah. At the time, the scientists at the place didn't know that Ss'sik'chtokiwij were dangerous, so they let us visit Ernie in her cell, play games like Monopoly with her.

Okay, so the researchers weren't super dumb, they saw the aliens as dangerous as, say, a bobcat or a grizzly bear, but Sarah was a clone, and in between lying about how dad said it was okay, and dad ascribing to the "That'll learn you" school of parenting, I got away with playing with deadly chest bursting E.T.

One day Ernie's kin got loose, killed people in the lab. We escaped them, with our alien friend's help, fleeing to Sarah's apartment.

The place was pretty basic. Just a couple beds and some storage compartments, Sarah's drawings and a poster of kitty cats on the walls. We locked the door, huddled in the corner, nervously waiting for the next alien to come popping out to kill us.

"Do you have a plan for getting out of here?" the alien asked.

We didn't.

"Once daddy is here, we can explain the situation," said Sarah. "Maybe he can get someone to send in the army or something."

Ernie nodded. "Sounds good. Though I think it will take them a long time to cross space."

She looked more worried now. "He'll figure something out, I'm sure."

The alien pointed to the door to the shower room. "What's in there?"

On the base, we had a water conservation system, which meant communal showers, kind of like the ones they have in gyms and prisons.

"You bathe in there," I said. "With the people in the other apartments."

"So anyone can get in there?"

I gave her a nervous nod.

"That's...not good."

Still, Sarah wanted her dad, so we hid there.

The alien was sitting closer to us than she'd normally been allowed, so she got a good look at Sarah's neck, found a bar code tattooed on the girl's skin. "Honey, you've got something on your neck."

"What, like a bug?"

"No. A tattoo. SB49045329. What's that about?"

She paled. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Honey, why don't you want to talk about it?"

"I got it in the dark place."

I stared at her in bewilderment. "Dark place?"

A tear rolled down her cheek. "Please. Don't make me talk about it."

I would find out about that dark place soon enough.

I was bold back then. I actually positioned myself close enough to Ernie to whisper into the ear side of her head.

My dad had some story about Sarah being stuck in a slave colony. It explained the tattoos, so I actually believed him. "Daddy says a lot of painful things happened to her while she was in there, so her mind makes her forget. That's what the dark place is."

"Thanks for telling me," Ernie whispered back.

I'd later find out she's a clone.

By the way, the alien had received some brain damage from a fight with her sisters, giving her a talking problem like Tourette's. I've left her little `tics' out of this narrative, but she kept doing it every time she talked, mostly things from the bible and "chair." I knew a guy in the chemistry department who had the same problem.

The alien bared her teeth. "Does this look like I'm smiling?"

I frowned. "No."

Sigh. "Still, you made made me feel better."

Then she noticed how sad and frightened Sarah was. "Are you okay?"

Sarah didn't answer.

Ernie patted her on the back. "It's okay, Sarah. No matter what happened to you, I'm here for you."

Sarah hugged her, but then frowned. "You're not very soft. I feel like I'm hugging a giant cockroach...No offense."

The alien looked sad, her head and shoulders drooping. "I'm sorry. That's just how God made me."

Sarah gave the hugging thing another try. "Can you even feel that?"

Ernie put a chitinous arm around her. "Yes."

We stared at the door.

"Sarah, how does your father know to meet us here?"

My friend pointed to her phone, charging in an electrical outlet. We had phones on the base, but we mainly used them like walkie-talkies.

Sarah liked to make the alien read The Hobbit. She said that Ernie sounded like Gollum, and coached her on cute ways to read the prose sections, you know, to make it seem like it was Gollum telling the story.

The door clicked open halfway into this dramatic performance. We all shrank back in fright, but it was only Sarah's dad.

Medium height, bearded Irish looking face, gray jumpsuit. Wrinkles around the mouth, crows' feet at the eyes.

"Daddy!" Sarah cried, running to him.

I was really glad to see him too. Ernie was good company, but she wasn't human. "Mr. Hansen!"

He hugged both of us. In some ways, I kinda thought of the guy as a dad. We both were crying and trying to explain everything that happened at the same time.

"Hi, Mr. Hansen!" Ernie padded forward, wagging her tail. "I'm so happy you're here!"

When the man looked up at the alien, fixing her with an icy glare. "What the hell is _that thing_ doing outside!"

He pushed me and Sarah away from her like the alien had rabies.

Ernie wagged her tail anxiously, watching with unease as Mr. Hansen took out a gun to shoot her.

"No, daddy," Sarah cried, but her father ignored it.

The man loaded rounds into the gun. "I tolerated you in the lab because you were under lock and key. I let you play with my daughter because you were under supervision, and Kurt only needed to push a button to overload those probes whenever you got out of line."

He aimed the weapon at the alien's head. "I suggest, if you can understand what I'm saying, and if you have any sense at all, you'd high tail it back to the lab before I add a few extra holes in that banana you call a head."

"I can't," Ernie protested. "The others of my kind will kill me."

"Tough."

Sarah's dad chambered a round, pulling back the hammer.

Swallowing, Ernie backed toward the door to the shower room.

"Daddy, don't," said Sarah.

"Honey," the man said. "Ernie isn't well, and he needs to go back to his cage. If he does what I say, no one will get hurt."

With a heavy sigh, the alien opened the door to the shower room, stepping out.

I felt so bad for Ernie. She meant well, and Mr. Hansen was just being cruel to her for no good reason.

And why did you want to shoot someone that saved children's lives?

She was a _friend_. _I cared about her_.

I know it sounds weird coming from someone who used to live in fear of xenomorphs, but I actually ran to her, throwing my arms around her exoskeleton. "Don't go!"

"Rebecca!" Mr. Hansen cried. "Get out of the way!"

I swallowed hard. The mean old man was going to murder one of my coolest friends, someone, at the time, I genuinely cared about, and for what? Leaving her cage? "No," I told him. "You'll have to kill me first."

The alien sneezed.

Mr. Hansen scowled, disarmed his gun. "Dammit."

"Why?" Ernie asked me. "Why stick up for me like this?"

 _"You're my friend."_ I told her.

She coughed.

Up until this point, I thought she'd just been reacting to the dust or something. I didn't know how aliens expressed themselves. "Are you allergic to something?"

"No. I'm...happy. "

My twin, seeing what I was trying to do, grabbed me by the throat, squeezing my neck until I could hear my shell cracking.

I saw stars and everything got all swimmy.

She didn't talk or growl or make any sound. That frightened me more than if she had actually threatened me.

Despite the silence, I understood the message, loud and clear.

This body belonged to the shadow, and I wasn't supposed to be messing with her turf.

The strange Ss'sik'chtokiwij that had been watching me, seeing me in peril, leapt from the shadows, claws spreading for attack.

My twin raised one of her hands, and my would-be rescuer somehow became magically suspended above the floor, unable to move.

I said a prayer for deliverance, and for resistance against the temptations I faced.

A bright glow erupted from my claw, the same claw that I had used to pick up the golden rock.

I raised two claws in a benedicting gesture.

The moment those claws touched my enemy's body, I experienced an effect like turning the electromagnet of one of those machines that drop cars into a crusher against another magnetic crane of the same polarity. She went flying through the room.

I resisted the urge to shout `Expellariamus', for fear of losing whatever power that had been bestowed upon me.

My enemy picked herself up off the floor, shrieking so loudly that all the windows shattered, and the vacuum of space sucked the air out of the room.

She transformed into a black cloud, appearing to disperse into the vortex, but when I inhaled, the gas entered my mouth, filled my lungs. The whole world went dark.

My eyes focused again, and I found dad choking me.

We were still in the gymnasium. He had me pressed up against a pillar.

Dad threw me into a wall, breaking the sheetrock.


	24. Chapter 29: Marked

One time, when mom was busy working on the base, and school was out, mom had given me the task of doing the dishes. The washer was broken, so I was doing it by hand.

Dad had been drinking. When I dropped a glass cup and broke it, dad quoted a Shel Silversetein poem, accusing me of breaking the dishes on purpose to get out of work.

I told him it had been an accident, but he said it was "Accidentally on purpose."

A few dishes later, I broke a plate. He punished me by practicing the sleeper hold on me. I saw stars and blacked out.

When I picked myself up off the linoleum a minute later, he told me, "Get up, you big baby."

As the monster impersonating my dad attacked me, my mind went back to that event.

God never drops in like Superman, solving all your problems at once. He provides, He guides, He saves the soul, but He doesn't always prevent you from being choked or beaten to death.

Being this was a spiritual attack, I had hoped this would be qualifying exception, but at present the evil force continued to throttle me.

My body crashed through a secondary wall, and I was falling out onto the barren surface of Archeron, in the torrential downpour of the terraforming equipment.

Help, Lord, I prayed. I can't do this on my own.

Lightning flashed from the sky, striking the ground, and my enemy's back.

In another brilliant flash, the cratered planet became the heaven I experienced when I first died.

The shadowy entity, surrounded by such beauty and holiness, dropped me in fright.

I raised the claw I had held the golden rock with, uttering a prayer about casting out this evil presence.

I made the sign of the cross, and `dad' burned up like a vampire in sunlight, leaving me alone with the strange Ss'sik'chtokiwij he'd possessed.

We stood halfway in my memory palace, halfway in my memory of heaven.

I told her briefly about how she shouldn't kill human beings. I named this child of Ernie Ruth. "We have a lot more to talk about, but we've got lives to save."

"You seem anxious," the alien said mentally. "There are only a small amount of us Ss'sik'chtokiwij onboard."

The trouble with mind to mind communication is that there are no secrets. Whatever you try to repress pops right to the front of your brain, like when you try not to think of a pink elephant, or pray to not think about sex.

"You're trying to kill us!"

"N-no!" I stammered, but that only brought up a private fantasy about suicide.

She'd seen my memory of call programming the ship to wreck into Antarctica.

"I'm sorry."

"Take your Jesus back. Take your name back, too."

"Do you really want that thing controlling you again?"

This gave Ruth pause.

At last she said, "...I sense your guilt."

"I'm sorry. My people, I mean, what used to be my people, _humans_ , they don't like us."

"They _hate_ us."

"Yes." I flashed pictures of people the Ss'sik'chtokiwij killed, and the people who grieved them. "Can you blame them?"

"We're going to die."

"I'm sorry."

"We're going to die! _Do something!_ "

I didn't so much speak as hit her with a barrage of helplessness.

Ruth sent back deep disappointment. "You don't know how."

I'd seen the Betty in the docking area. Ruth glimpsed my fantasies about Ruth and the others joining me, and the problems of the humans and the aliens fighting each other, the humans shooting them, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij eating the humans...I pondered using the escape pods, then the whimsical thought about the Millenium Falcon popped in there.

"They're not going to let us go with them, are they?"

I shook my head, flashing her an image of Johner blowing my brains out with a shotgun.

"Why are you friends with them? Why not kill them?"

But then she noticed how my self image had changed back to the little girl from Hadley's Hope.

"Oh."

"Yeah. _Oh._ "

I began an apology, but Ruth showed me the memory of the golden pillars, its power to open portals to other places.

I sensed confusion, but before I could attempt an explanation, she already saw my mental picture of Captain Kirk and Spock teleporting to the surface of a planet.

Ruth got excited by this until I showed her how the pillars disintegrated, and how hellish that other place was.

"We would not die."

"True," I thought, but I returned an illustration from _Dante's Inferno_ , the one where Satan, stuck halfway in a lake of ice, picks up random people and eats them.

In response, I got a picture of myself destroying the Devil like I had destroyed a shadow, and her family figure skating on the ice.

I laughed. "No human being can destroy Satan."

"Perhaps, but you also think this other place, this parallel dimension, might not literally be hell."

"It's cold. There's no food. It's like a big maze."

"True, but we would live."

Again I showed her the broken obelisks.

Ruth responded with my vision of Wren. He got in there somehow, to destroy the pillars.

She visualized a pair of walkie-talkies, one smashed to bits, one fully intact, a pair of phones, one broken, one not.

Then she visualized a third radio, a third phone.

"No, no," I scratched it out.

"What good is it to only have one?"

I pictured an atomic bomb.

She pictured Wren blowing himself up, with a question mark.

I showed her the Betty, but she understood the picture enough to have my image of the Betty shattering in the explosion. Again the question mark.

I had no response to this, except for Fred from _Scooby Doo_ saying he had a real mystery on his hands, and the stopwatch from _Sixty Minutes_.

Now, I didn't have a mouth worm to disengage. I didn't even know how I connected to Ruth's brain until I found myself awake, with my claw on her head.

Feeling a burning, tingling sensation, and noticing the rock missing, I turned my claw over.

I soon discovered the location of the exotic mineral.

It had melted into my palm.

A mystical symbol had been burned into my claw, a plus sign surrounded by alien symbols.

The moment I wondered about the mass of the object in relation to the amount of gold on my person, I noticed how strange Ruth's exoskeleton had become.

It looked like someone had dripped a gold candle all over her, and done some abstract painting.

I turned my attention to the other parties in this battle against evil.

Lacy, Ssunamrozedrah, Opvossu-Jesus, and Mary Jorden lay on the floor with enemy Ss'sik'chtokiwij, mouths pressed together in mental contact.

Call and Big Bird stood facing two remaining ones, Call with her boot knife, Big Bird armed with a laser cutter.

Purvis, now awakened from his episode, lay still as a statue on the floor, too paralyzed by fear to dare moving a muscle.

The remaining aliens, seeing me and Ruth getting up, and the strange state of their companions, quickly beat a hasty retreat, perhaps to regroup and attack us later when they were better prepared.

Not knowing what to expect, I braced myself as the remaining Ss'sik'chtokiwij opponents stirred from their mental connections.

The battle wasn't over.

I guess the real miracle was the fact that the Ss'sik'chtokiwij I exorcised were able to save anyone at all.

You would have thought Mary Jorden, the one I'd put so much effort into mentally baptizing and attempting CPR upon, would have been the one to survive the shadow things, but it turns out _the one I merely named was the one that remained my ally_.

I don't know, I think sometimes God uses things that are inadequate to show you who really has the power. Someone who is not me.

At first, it seemed much more promising.

"We have a new sister in the faith!" Opvossu-Jesus had cried. "Her name is Disciple Sesquagob!"

But then, a moment later, two of my allies had turned against me, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij they had tried to convert purring in malevolent glee.

"Your God has failed," said Mary Jorden.

Ssunamrozedrah had brought a rifle along with her, but had up until this point refrained from using it on her kin, preferring instead the nonviolent method of mind to mind communication.

For some reason, this had abruptly changed.

With a nasty smile, she chambered a round, aiming the barrel at my head.


	25. Chapter 30: Battle

By now, all the aliens had awakened, our enemies watching with glee as Ssunamrozedrah prepared to end my life.

"You're going to splatter my brains," I said incredulously. "You came from who knows where, _to rescue me_ , and now you just want to kill me."

The weapon shook in Ssunamrozedrah's claws.

"And you," I said to Mary. "You were free from those things. _I tried to save you with CPR._ "

"You left me to die," she growled.

 _"_ How was I supposed to know you were still alive? _I'm just a dumb kid!_ " I shook my head. "I'm sorry. Please don't kill me."

Ssunamrozedrah's claws shifted on the trigger. _"You got in our way._ "

"If you wanted me to die, you should have just left me to rot in my cell! Why even bother going through all the trouble of breaking me out?"

"Shut up!" Ssunamrozedrah snarled in Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

I quietly uttered a brief prayer.

Now, during my voyage into Ruth's mind, Mara had been attacked, knocked to the floor.

Did I mention she was there the whole time? Well, she was.

At any rate, at this particular moment I saw her brushing herself off. "Ssunamrozedrah, she's right. What is Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik going to think if you kill her aunt?"

 _"You're not Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik's mother!"_

"Perhaps not biologically, but I've adopted her, and she wholeheartedly accepts it."

Just like me, I thought.

"You're doing this because of _your own mother_ , aren't you?" I blurted without even knowing why. "You blame me for Hissandra's death."

I didn't really know who Hissandra was, or that she or it was even related to Ssunamrozedrah, but somehow it fit together like a puzzle in my brain. I don't know if I remembered it correctly, but I could even picture Ssunamrozedrah's mother growling beside The Queen beneath the surface of Archeron, Ernie crying that name as Ripley shot that particular alien full of bullets.

The barrel of Ssunamrozedrah's weapon lowered to my chest area. It seemed I had touched a nerve, in a good way.

"You're not the only orphan here. Killing me is only going to make you more alone. You want to distance yourself from Ernie?"

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik loves Newt," Big Bird agreed.

"Why does it matter? You're going to blow us all up!"

I sighed. "We're wasting time. You want to solve that problem, or lose the opportunity by killing me?"

"Kill her!" Mary barked.

Under the evil influence, Ssunamrozedrah fired at me, but the bullet hit nothing vital, just a shoulder plate.

I know it's dumb, but I raised my hands, you know, like I were going to block a dirt clod or something instead of live ammunition. I prayed that she would be strong and resist the urge to kill me.

My claw glowed like it were on fire, a beam of light bursting from my palm.

The beam struck Ssunamrozedrah. She fell backwards, dark smoke dispersing from her speckled body as she collapsed on the grating.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij Ssunamrozedrah had attempted connection with roared at me, charging like a stampeding bull.

Since the glowing thing worked so well the first time, I raised my hand like some guy in a video game casting Magic Missile.

Instead of shooting my foe, I saw Ruth's golden drippings glowing blue. She opened her mouth, and it was like Godzilla breathing out a death beam, blasting a previously unseen cloud of black ash out of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's exoskeleton.

That left us with two foes, Lacy, and another unnamed child of Ernie's. (Up until now, I probably forgot to mention them too).

Lacy snatched up Ssunamrozedrah's shotgun, chambered a round, and then, unexpectedly, blew her companion's head open like a melon. " _Oops!_ _My bad!_ "

We all stared at her.

 _"There! Now that we're a big happy family again..."_

She pulled a grenade out of a satchel she had strapped to her waist. "If any of you don't know what this doohickey does, I'll explain: I pull the little pin, and boom, you, me, and most this hallway gets blown to itty bitty little pieces. The word for today is _rapid depressurization_. You'll learn what it means when these bulkheads go bye bye and you find yourself floating outside with no air!"

By this time, Ssunamrozedrah had recovered from... _whatever_ , standing on two legs again.

The moment she made a move toward Lacy, the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij's claws made a threatening hook inside the grenade's tiny ring. "No way, Jose! Y'all are going to be nice aliens and stay the fuck where you are, or everyone's an instant astronaut!"

"This ship is going to crash into the earth!" I protested.

"Not my problem! There's a little ship called The Betty, and I'm getting on it!"

Ssunamrozedrah growled explanations to her relatives, making them all nervously back away.

When Lacy had gained a considerable distance, she pulled the pin, throwing the explosive back to us with a mad laugh.

The grenade did nothing more than send up clouds of colored teargas, with distracting thermals.

By the time the fog had cleared, Lacy was gone.

"How much time do we have?" I asked Call.

Her eyelids fluttered. _"Less than eighty minutes to impact."_

I swallowed hard. "Take Mr. Purvis and get on the Betty. Get everyone out of here."

"What about that one that threw the grenade?"

 _"She's mine,"_ Ssunamrozedrah snarled. "Leave her to me."

The android actually looked _worried. For me._ "What about you?"

I spread my claws, gesturing to the aliens around me. "I have to stay with my... _family._ "

"But this place is going to _crash! You'll die!_ "

"I don't have a place with your people," I said. "I'm going to look for another way off this station."

"But there isn't any! _The pods are gone!_ Once the Betty is gone, you're history!"

"That's where I hope you're wrong."

She looked at me like I were crazy. "What are you going to do? Jump out the airlock?"

"Remember those gold things that Christie got dragged through? Wren's got to have more of those somewhere, and _I'm_ going to find them."

"But that's suicide!"

"So's staying here."

Seeing that none of the aliens had touched him, Purvis shakily got to his feet. " _Gold things?_ This is nuts! I'm out of here!"

"Go," I insisted.

She gave the other androids pleading glances.

"Save your humans," said Mara. "We came here for Newt and the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij. Our place is here."

Call gave them a grim nod, hurriedly leading the man down the corridor.

Whether or not Mara and Big Bird genuinely cared for me, of if it were merely part of their programming I did not know, but I gave each of them a hug anyway.

"Mara," I said. "I saw a pair of gold obelisks on this level. There might be others we can use to transport ourselves out of here. Do you know of any areas of the ship where something like this may be hidden?"

"I am required to clean and maintain ninety percent of this vehicle," she answered. "That being said, my cleaning schedule has never included areas containing the objects you describe."

"I have encountered similar setbacks," said Big Bird. "Father has prevented me from accessing scans and video feeds from several regions of the station. Even small attempts to circumnavigate the security system have resulted in me being blocked from certain areas of the system."

The moment she said this, I lost all hope. "So even if we turn this ship upside down looking for these things, we're all going to die."

"Not...necessarily," said Big Bird. "Although Father has denied access to several crucial access nodes, deductive logic is not something one can so easily place limitations upon.

"Doctor Wren's movements follow a peculiar pattern. For several days, I have observed him entering and leaving a specific corridor with unusual objects that do not correspond to his known field of scientific expertise."

I frowned. "What do you mean by that?"

"The articles he carried...appeared to have unknown religious significance."

"Show me where he went."


	26. Chapter 31: Motherly Love

As Ssunamrozedrah raced down the corridor to stop Lacy, the rest of us followed the android.

"I am surprised that you called us family," said Opvossu-Jesus. "In the laboratory, you made it quite clear that you wanted nothing to do with us."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I...was scared."

I didn't want to tell her the whole truth, that I was staying behind to protect the humans, that this _was_ a suicide mission, and I was only lying to myself and everyone else to give them a chance to escape without being devoured or impregnated by a pack of Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

Mara put a hand on my shoulder plate. "It is a true sign of familial love when one learns to forgive, and accept the imperfections of one's relatives, to care for one another, despite their failure to live up to one's ideal expectations."

"I remember you telling the same thing to Sarah."

"That doesn't make it any less true."

Sarah never had a real mother, she just had this android. Since birth, Mara lied to her, pretended to be the girl's biological mother, and she believed it. The illusion kinda fell apart when Ernie's Ss'sik'chtokiwij mother ripped the android in half, and Sarah saw `mommy' spraying white coolant everywhere, her upper torso crawling around like losing half your body was no big deal.

The incident had taken place in the Hydroponics Center. This engineer guy named Brice was trying to help us escape from the aliens, but we got stopped at the elevator.

Brice was a cool guy.

He was somewhere above five feet, with a beard and long hair that made him look like Jesus, but Multiple Sclerosis robbed him of the use of his legs, so he always had to use a pair of odd looking wooden arm crutches or put his full weight on desks and such to move around.

He could fix anything, jury rig appliances to do things the designers never intended. One time, for Timmy's birthday, he built a space gun from a remote control, an old phone, and parts of a broken printer. It was meant to be a toy, but my brother found all sorts of unintended uses for it, interfering with the neighbor's entertainment devices, changing the channels on the public information kiosks, causing people's toasters and refrigerators to flicker on and off. Someone got mad and took it away, I forget who.

I remember coolant splattering on Brice's glasses, Ernie and Mara grabbing the big alien by the legs, dragging her down a staircase.

"Kids," Brice had said. "Let's get going while the going is good."

"But mommy-!" Sarah cried.

"Kid, _you just saw milk spraying out her guts_. As long as those things leave her hard drive alone, your mommy's going to be just fine. It's us carbon based lifeforms that are in deep shit. Now are you going to move your little butt, or am I going to have to fall over trying to kick it?"

He meant business. Ernie's sister had already punctured his left eye, and he wasn't going to lose another one.

We hurried through a plot of corn, climbing down into an underground irrigation maintenance tunnel.

It took some doing, but we found a way out a connecting electrical service box, bypassing the greenhouse and a bunch of Ss'sik'chtokiwij who were even now chowing down on our pet goats.

Despite all the death, we found we were hungry too, so we quietly made our way to the base's cafeteria as fast as we could.

We found live people in there. I forget who all was present, it's been so long, but I _do_ remember Bob Hiskey, the gym/agricultural studies teacher/Block C-3 building maintenance guy, Jan Timberlake (Spanish class/building superintendent) some motor pool guys dad worked with, and other familiar faces I'd seen around the base, electricians, plumbers, sanitation...I think one lady was a whore, taught English to the big kids as her main job.

Brice tried to warn everyone about the aliens, but nobody believed him. The scientist guys apparently did a good job of keeping the whole thing under wraps.

"This is a dead rock!" I heard one of the electricians saying. "We haven't found a single alien microbe, other than the shit we brought in."

"Yeah?" Brice took off his glasses, lifted his eyepatch. "Then how do you explain _this_? _You going to tell me that there's a_ bear _running loose in the facility?_ "

"Knowing you, you probably just tore that up with some farm equipment."

"You know what, _fuck you!_ I know what I saw!" Brice put his glasses back on. "But hey, _your funeral._ Don't let it be said that I didn't warn anyone."

We followed him as he hobbled toward the kitchen.

"Wait," said a power plant guy, probably that math teacher that kept giving me F's. "Where are you going?"

"What does it look like? We're getting lunch."

Math Guy blocked our passage. "Wait your turn like everyone else."

"Thanks, but I don't want to sit here and wait for a bunch of monsters to come take a bite out of my ass. Move, please."

The jumpsuited figure crossed his arms indignantly.

"Listen. _Buddy_. If I'm wrong, I'll give you half my paycheck. A thousand credits. It's yours."

"You lose that much playing Texas Hold `Em."

 _"The whole thing,_ then. Free access to the crops. Name your price. I promise, if I'm wrong, I'll never come in here again. I'm only asking for some supplies for a little journey."

Math Guy frowned. " _Journey_ back to a table, and we _might_ bring the supplies out to you."

"Oh sure. Canned beets and water chestnuts, right? I'll do the shopping myself, thank you!"

"No. You will not."

Brice tried to sneak around him, but it didn't work.

I could tell Math Guy didn't want the negative stigma of being the guy who pushes over cripples because he only put a warning hand on Brice's chest. "Wait. Your. Turn."

Brice brushed him away. "Hands off, dickhead! Let us through!"

"I'm trying to be considerate here, as you should be considerate to others in this cafeteria by waiting your turn. I know you're handicapped, but I promise we'll be much more accommodating..." The schoolteacher in the man was trying very hard not to cuss in my presence. " _And wait for someone to serve you!_ "

"Yeah, and in the meantime those big fuckers are going to come in here, see us sitting in the open without a care in the world, and think _we're_ on the menu!"

"Again with your little green men! We haven't seen hair nor hide of your Martians since we arrived on this patch of dirt! What the hell have you been smoking, Pittman?"

Then he sniffed, smelled the alcohol that Brice had accidentally spilled all over himself during our escape. "Sorry, _did I say smoking? I meant drinking_. _Hitting the sauce a little early today, aren't we?_ "

Brice looked embarrassed. _"Seemed like the thing to do._ "

The teacher pantomimed boozing, eliciting chuckles from the others in the room.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up. You've always been a damn prick."

"You look a little unsteady," Teacher Guy said, grabbing Brice's crutches. "Why don't you take a seat and let the alcohol wear off a little?"

"Why don't you burn in hell?"

"I thought Jews didn't believe in hell."

"That doesn't stop me from wanting you to go there. Maybe God will make an exception."

When Teacher Guy touched the metal part of Brice's crutches, he fell to the floor, spasming like he'd been tased.

I'd spotted Brice flipping something on the back just a moment before. Another one of his inventions, I guess.

The muttered cursings indicated that he would not be able to repeat this performance anytime soon.

So anyways, we were in, the other people being too polite to mess with a cripple and a bunch of hungry looking kids. Even the cooks tolerated us, allowing Brice to ransack the cupboards.

Brice scowled at a yellow can of processed meat. "An off brand? Seriously? They can't even carry Hormel? That's it, I've _got_ to check what's in that shipment I ordered."

"Oh my God!" I heard a woman shouting. "What the fuck is that?"

Everyone was looking out, even the cooks.

"I'd barricade the door if I were you," Brice told them. "But hey, what do I know? _I'm just the drunk cripple!_ "

What they had been looking at, Ernie told me later, was herself fighting her spiky haired sister Sanchirck on the upper balcony.

As I and Sarah stuffed our faces with hoagie sandwiches from the refrigerator, and Brice picked up canned pasta, beans and some other random things for later, I overheard people talking about the aliens falling into the sewer.

This was only one out of Ernie's immediate family. The mother and three other sisters were still at large.

When people in the cafeteria started screaming, Brice set about hacking the lock to the wine cellar.

I asked why, and I got the indignant answer, "You got a better idea?"

We didn't.

He plugged a little device into a card slot, and the door popped open. "Let's hope _those things_ aren't this clever!"

The man almost took a plunge down the stairs, but we walked him down, then barricaded the door like _Night of the Living Dead_.

It was pretty much everything you'd want in a wine cellar. Refrigerated chilling racks, a collection of vintages, a small winery setup with stainless steel and oaken equipment...

A lot of people died upstairs.

Boom! Something exploded. An alien shrieked.

We heard banging sounds, screams, then nothing for a whole minute.

Knock knock.

"I have only a couple guesses about who you are!" Brice called up the stairs. "Either you're one of those bastard things that's trying to have us for lunch, or you're Bernie. Either way, you're not getting in!"

"My name...is Sydjea," said a raspy voice. _"I am a friend."_

"Right. And what, _I'm just supposed to believe that?_ "

"Ernie...tell me about Jesus."

"That's great! Is one of you a rabbi?"

"I...don't know what that means."

"Go screw yourself, _Sweatheehaw_! Preferably somewhere five miles away from the door!"

"I...am sorry I destroyed your eye."

"Fuck you, _Squidheehaw!_ As soon as I find a gun, I'm going to shove it up your asshole and pull the trigger, maybe scoop your brains out when I'm done so I can use your head as a candy dish! Now get away from the damn door, you ugly no good motherfucking space cockroach!"

"I...am sorry you feel that way. I was hoping there was something I could do to help you."

"Uh, other than disabling the safeties on one of those industrial microwaves and setting it for roast with your head inside? Nope, I think we're good down here! Aren't we good, girls?"

I hesitantly nodded.

"You're a meanie," said Sarah.

"Try losing an eye to one of those things and see how mean it makes _you._ "

Things got silent upstairs. We sat down on the floor and rested awhile.

"Some day, huh kids?"

Me and Sarah were hesitant to reply. We had no words.

"They've been stringing you along this whole time, haven't they?" he asked Sarah. "Telling you your mommy's not a machine?"

Sarah sniffed, wiped tears out of her eyes.

Brice hugged her. "I'm sorry. Your dad's a real-"

"Dad's dead."

"God. That's right. I'm sorry." He kissed her head, held her close. "Tell you what. When this is all over-"

The power abruptly cut out., the lights in the cooling rack going dark.

"Jesus. That's just what we need."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Probably just a brownout at the geothermal plant."

I would find out later that it was actually an electrical incident in the sewers.

The door to the cellar, being electrically locked, was not difficult to open from the exterior. A flimsy barricade set up by little girls and a man with MS really can't withstand that kind of pressure.

"I will not harm you," `Squid Yeehah' said. "Please. What can I do to protect you?"

"Shut the motherfucking door!" Brice shouted.

"In addition to that?"

The man handed me a taser from his bag. "Here. Throw this up to that thing."

I did. The door closed once more.

It turned out that a box I'd been sitting on contained fireworks. A whole bunch of M-80's. When Brice clicked on his lighter to take a look inside, he swore something awful because he had a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth.

But then his terror turned to excitement, and he drew a shuddering gasp like a teen that just learned he inherited a flashy sports car from a rich uncle. Brice put half the box in his satchel.

Armed with powerful explosives, and a new mad plan, Brice led us out of the cellar.

I found the source of the explosion, an obliterated microwave with aerosol cans in it, and a caved in gas cooking range. The chef and one of the staff guys had given their lives to detonate the whole mess, but I doubted it made much of an impact on the aliens.

The man clicked down a corridor to the cover on a maintenance duct. The plan was to climb it up to the roof and cut over to an underground cavern, but after a long difficult climb in that cramped little passageway, we found the tunnel blocked by an air processor.

Ernie's mother found us, ripped away the register right in front of us, leaving us all exposed.

When her head came in to bite me, Brice lit an M-80 and shouted "Eat this, you stupid bitch!" throwing it into her mouth.

It blew up, but Ernie's mother only seemed to get pissed off.

"That was a fucking M-80! It should have done something!"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij clawed at me.

"Kids, back it up! The bitch is on the rag!"

As a claw shredded my pant leg, I saw Ernie leap up on her mother, zapping her with the taser. I guess she must have figured out her mom's nerve center, because the bigger Ss'sik'chtokiwij collapsed on the floor, convulsing for awhile.

"Brice! Get the kids to safety!" our alien friend shouted.

"Love to oblige!" Brice argued. "But we're blocked in by machinery!"

"Then get out of there! Hurry!"

"You know how fucking hard it was to get in here in the first place?"

"Mother's going to wake up! If you can come out, you need to come out now!"

"You want me out, Bernie? Then get your damn cockroach ass over here and help me down!"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij stood on her hind legs, holding out her arms, but she was too short. Brice's weight knocked her to the floor.

"Gee, Bernie! You're about as cushiony as farm equipment!"

He groaned, staggering to a standing position. "I think _this concrete_ is softer than your arms!"

I threw his stuff down to him, watching anxiously as Ernie tased her mother again, to keep her immobile.

"Okay, Bernie," Brice said. "Don't get any ideas, but I want you to hold me. I need to catch the girls somehow, so you've got to be my legs."

The alien obediently aided him.

"All right, kids! Hurry down before the thing wakes up!"

Sarah climbed out the opening, hanging from the edge.

She hesitated, staring down, glancing back at me.

"Go!" I urged.

Sarah swallowed, let herself drop.

I'm not great with heights, but I've been on a few scavenging trips with my parents where we got in space suits and jumped or climbed down a rock face to grab something to trade with. Plus, one time I ruined a shipment of cardboard boxes by doing some `stunt jumps' in the base's receiving warehouse, from about that same height, so I wasn't too scared.

When I got near our alien friend, I discovered he smelled like poo.

Brice wrinkled his nose. "Good God, Bernie! What have you been doing, swimming in a sewer!"

That's when the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij woke up and wrung Ernie's neck.

"One thing I've learned from survival films," Brice said. "When the big bear starts fighting with the wildcat, run like hell while they're busy duking it out. You won't get another chance."

I gave him a grim nod.

Brice and I dropped a bunch of lit M-80's as we left. I heard them exploding as we rushed away from that scene of violence.

I'd seen Life Support a couple times during `Job Day' at school. I knew a few things about how the equipment worked, like changing views of the weather patterns to read where the next storm would hit, getting approvals for shutting off power to people who can't meet the payment schedule, oh, and _working the security monitors_.

I helped Brice figure out the system, catching the speckly Hissandra and Ernie's mom as they came stomping up the back corridor. "Can we...trap them back there? Like _Five Nights at Freddy's?_ "

He gave a tense chuckle. "I sure as hell hope so!"

Brice put a security lockdown on the room's outer door, rigging the wires so that it would never open again. "There! Like to see them get through _that!_ "

I shivered. "I wouldn't."

"You and me both, kid."

We failed to notice the Ss'sik'chtokiwij slipping up the stairs until it was halfway to our door.

"Take Sarah and go," Brice hissed. "Get that vent open in the back corner and find a way out." He thrust a screwdriver into my hands.

"But-!" Sarah cried.

"Get the fuck out of here! Now!"

I rushed to the vent, fiddling with the fasteners on the air register.

Brice had given me one of those all-in-one combination screwdriver sets, but the panel in front of me was one of those hex key type things you need an Allen wrench for.

"Hurry up, damn you!" Brice shouted.

"It's not the right type!" I yelled back.

He rolled his eyes. " _Oh for the love of God! Twist the damn bottom open!_ There should be a magnetic attachment that'll work on it!"

I figured the thing out, but then the guy who ran the station came in. I guess he'd left for the bathroom or something. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

Tall black guy, young, slack jawed, crazy hairstyle that looked like a fern.

"Um," Brice stammered. " _Trying not do die._ Yourself?"

The man sighed, crossed his arms. "You'd better not have messed up any of my computers. I'll have you in the brig so fast it'll make your head spin."

He glanced at me. "Don't you have a class to be in, missy?"

I opened my mouth to reply, but he noticed the screwdriver in my hand, put two and two together. "What are you doing to my vents?"

"This isn't a good time," Brice said. "But don't worry. We have no intention of camping out here."

 _"That's pretty much what all vandals say._ " He marched to his desk, calling the police with his radio phone. "Hello, Jim? This is -"

A bumpy bug body jumped over his desk, flaying him open. The man screamed, blood splattering the chair, the floor.

"What the hell kind of call sign is that?" said a voice on the other end of the phone.

I'd been working on opening the vent this whole time. I figured out the screwdriver thing, had two of the bolts removed.

Brice grabbed the phone, clicking the button. "Hello, this is Brice Pittman in Life Support. We need help. Send someone with guns immediately. Lives are in danger-"

The alien threw him to the floor.

"Save your War of the Worlds shit for Halloween, Pittman!" the voice on the phone replied.

"Knew that asshole wouldn't be of any help!" Brice muttered, fighting the alien away from his face. "You'd better get going, kids! _Uncle Brice is a goner!_ "

I felt horrible for leaving him there, but the guy knew what he was doing. I got the vent open, and me and Sarah got crawling.

I'd played around in those ducts before, so I kind of knew where to go next. Well, until we got to the dead end near crew quarters. We had to get out, cutting through the communal shower area.

Sarah thought it would be a good idea to grab her phone and call for help, so we ran back to her apartment.

The moment we took it off the charger, the phone vibrated, flashing this text message:

I'M IN THE HALLWAY. COME QUICK.

Sarah frowned. "That's mom's number."

"Let's go," I urged.

"She's only a robot."

"Maybe we _need_ a robot."

We rushed out, searching the upper floor landing for a few minutes. We found Mara's upper torso plugged into a wall outlet next to one of the doors.

"I am experiencing a critical system failure," the android gurgled to us with milk-like coolant bubbling out of her mouth. "I have detected several vital pieces of equipment in room 17B, and I need you children to carry me there."

I nodded, but Sarah said no. "You're just a machine with no legs. I'm going to find a _real adult_ to help me."

Mara looked pained. "Please, honey. _If not for me, do it for your father._ "

With a sigh, she helped me grab the robot, carrying her downstairs to the tool room.

The looked like someone's basement workroom, a catch-all for _anything_ extra from the entire base. Junk computer monitors, a heavy drill press, a lathe, shovels, pickaxes, and boxes full of electronic supplies, little wheeled carts loaded with light bulbs, bolts and tools.

Mara found all the equipment she needed, fixed herself back into working condition. Once she had a few cords plugged into the base of her skull, she was even able to use an intercom system to flash signals to Brice through the base's emergency lights and informational computers.

The man was in bad shape, his leg bleeding all over the place, but he made it, helping us barricade the room with a bunch of heavy tools and scrap construction materials. A Floorbot 850 was sent to scour Brice's blood off the floor, concealing our location.

The man had brought along his bag of kitchen supplies. It hadn't been that long since we'd eaten hoagies and ice cream, but it felt like forever, so he opened a can of baked beans, heating them up with a welding torch.

We ate in silence. Sarah's mother looked at her daughter apologetically, but my friend was just too angry to even make eye contact.

At last Sarah said, "You lied to me. Both you and dad."

"Honey...Lou and I wanted you to develop like a normal little girl. We agreed that if you knew, your emotional growth would be stunted by an obsession to find a flesh and blood mother."

"Like it isn't stunted now?" she practically shouted. "So who's my real mother?"

Mara only responded with, _"That information is restricted."_

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"My programming does not allow access to this information."

"Tell me!" Sarah cried, punching her, shoving her to the floor. "Tell me now!"

"Whoa, kid!" Brice said. " _Don't damage the merchandise!_ Like her or not, we still need her technical skills."

Sarah grabbed the robot by the throat. "Tell me who my mother is!"

"Quiet, kid!" Brice hissed. "You want all those things to come in here and kill us?"

I frowned at her. "He's right. _Plus,_ _your mom's a robot_. Beating her up isn't going to give you the secret password."

Sarah burst into tears.

"Honey..." Mara tried to console her, putting her hand on her shoulder, but Sarah only brushed her away.

"When were you going to tell me? Never? How old would I have had to be before you'd actually break down and tell me the truth? Or is that restricted information too?"

Mara had no answer to this. Another awkward silence followed.

"It wasn't something I could disclose," Mara said at last. "I wanted to be a real mother, just like I was a real wife to your father. If I couldn't fulfill that role, I didn't want to live. I'd rather they disassemble me and reformat my system."

Sarah gave her an icy stare. "You're not my mother," she croaked.

"Sarah, just because I'm an android doesn't mean I don't have any feelings."

Sarah sniffed. _"I thought that was exactly what it meant."_

Mara explained her soft logic system, how she could really love. "We really had some good times together. I really felt like part of a family. I experienced your loving. I felt joy when I saw your first steps, spoke your first words...and our wonderful little Christmas gatherings..."

Sarah's lip trembled as she listened, weeping at the mixture of betrayal and happy memories. "You're just a robot," she sobbed. "You're not my real mother. It was all just a big fat lie. You're just a thing with a messed up face and no legs! _A real mother_ would have never survived that!"

"Are you saying you want me to die?"

Sarah swallowed. "No...It's just..."

She shook her head. "You don't even yell at me. Even now, when you're supposed to be the most hurt you've ever been in your whole life, and you're not even crying or yelling. You're too calm. A real mother wouldn't..." She was about to say `take things sitting down,' but Mara had no lower torso. "She wouldn't be so _blah_!"

"Would you like me to be more emotional?" the android asked.

Sarah was taken aback. "No...Maybe. I...I don't know."

"I...I don't know what to say."

"The kid's got a point," Brice said. "It wouldn't set well with me if I suddenly discovered my mother was a toaster."

Mara scowled. "I thought by now you understood that I have feelings that can be hurt."

"So does my Google GameDrive 720."

 _"Wow,"_ Mara said sarcastically. _"That's nice."_

"There's entertainment, and there's reality. And when you confuse the two, it tends to be pathetic and sad."

"So now love is entertainment?"

"Actually yes. You'd be surprised at how many games there are about going out on dates. It really is sad. It must be lonely in Japan."

Mara looked like she'd been slapped.

I used to play a video game called _Escape the Kennel_. You used a microphone to tell little dogs what to do. The object of the game is to get them to the owner's house without getting hit by a car, stuck in a bear trap, or otherwise injured. The better you do at training your dog, the more golden collars you receive.

If you really suck at the game, or if you intentionally tell the dog to kill themselves, you get something called Meanie Points. Enough of them, and you unlock a secret bonus room with a bunch of funny animations. Brice got a real kick out of the animation of the puppies in the chipper shredder. In his defense, it _was_ entertaining.

"Brice has the highest Meanie Point score in _Escape the Kennel_ ," I said.

"You've won a million from me," Mara said without humor. "Want to keep going?"

The smile dropped off Brice's face. "No ma'am. _I prefer my games to be entertaining."_

Everyone sat in stony silence after that.

Brice took off his tourniquet, examining his wounds.

"I see you have serious injuries that require medical attention," said Mara. "May I provide assistance?"

"Sure. If you want a help a guy with a million Meanie Points under his belt."

Although still crying, Sarah slowly began to accept her robotic mother for what she was. Not as a real parent, but as a friend. "It explains a lot. You always acted a little weird. And your skin felt funny."

Mara smiled. "Nobody's perfect."

And as she stitched up Brice's leg, she told Sarah that same thing she told me, that you don't really love your family until you accept them, shortcomings and all.

Now, standing with a pack of aliens in the hallway of the Auriga, I reconsidered the meaning of those words.

Ss'sik'chtokiwij would never threaten to blow my skull open with a shotgun, unless possessed by an evil force. The human beings rushing to escape on the Betty, however, fully intended to shoot me full of holes at the drop of a hat.

Mara considered me her daughter, Big Bird, a good friend. Ernie, Ssunamrozedrah and Ripley cared enough about me to travel halfway across the galaxy and attempt my rescue, getting captured in the process. And the others...they were all daughters of my alien friend.

Like it or not, these alien weirdos _were_ my family. I realized I need to _do more than try_ to rescue them from their impending doom.

If I could save them, I could save a part of myself in the process. "We don't have much time. We'd better hurry."

With all the security doors released, we had little difficulty reaching the corridor in a reasonable amount of time.

"Are we going to save mother too?" asked the third unnamed Ss'sik'chtokiwij we had freed from the shadows, the one previously connected to Mary Jorden.

The stranger had a birthmark like a paisley print, kinda reminding me of an amoeba.

"I...don't know," I said. "She's... _kind of busy_. _And big_. She didn't look very mobile. She just told me to get her children out of here. She didn't say anything about herself."

"She sounds nice. I've never met her. Is she a nice Ss'sik'chtokiwij?" 

I remembered nights where she'd curl her body against me, protecting me from enemies, human and alien. Some of the memories involved me being a human child at the time. "Yeah. But I'm not sure she would like the circumstances of your birth."

Paisley Head frowned. "What's wrong with my birth?"

"The death of human beings displease her," Ruth explained.

I put my claws on my hips. "It displeases me too. I wish I could just... _fly all of you to some cattle ranch_ or something _so you wouldn't kill people._ Of course, you all being dead wouldn't make me too happy either. Let's keep going."

The tunnel had lots of locked security doors, all of them looking the same. "Where to now?"

"I was unable to get surveillance of this area," Big Bird said.

"Are you...able to... _deduce_ which one Wren may have gone through?"

The android froze for a moment. "I am sorry. Every room in this area is restricted."

"Great," I muttered. "We're going to die."

"You're the one who knows the most about this man and his device," Ruth said. "It was your idea!"

"I know," I whimpered. "I'm sorry! I really don't know what to do!"

"We should go back," said Mary. "Board this `Betty', damn the humans that get in our way."

She tried to leave, but Ruth blocked her before she could get anywhere. "Wait. _Newt, what did the man smell like?_ "

I frowned. "I don't know, cocaine and cheese doodles? Why's that important?"

"Humans have a scent trail. If you can find a door that smells of your... _cocaine and cheese doodles_ , we may possibly not die."

"No pressure, huh?" I stammered.

I was only joking about what the man smelled like.

I had to make use of a part of my brain that never got any action, and in a hurry, like a guy who only took Spanish in high school being forced to negotiate with a dangerous Colombian warlord without an interpreter.

I wandered the hallways aimlessly, sniffing random door panels, but it was like random friend requests in social media. The name or face might seem kinda familiar, but a couple months later you look back at your list and say, "Who the hell is that?"

Sometimes you might unpeel the onion a bit, and find a picture of them with someone you know, but you don't always have time to do that.

Worse than that, I kept finding distracting unpleasant details, like how the guy using Room 114 didn't bother to wash his hands after using the men's room.

Blood. I recognized _that,_ at least. They may have cleaned the flooring, but I caught traces of its coppery smell, that, and something that smelled of that decapitated frost giant, and dead Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "I think I got something."


	27. Chapter 32: Chamber of Secrets

I sniffed the door again. This was definitely the place.

The security keypad had the scent all over it, but didn't tell me what keys to press.

I frowned. Not only did it have a number pad, it also had a breath scanner, jokingly described as a `Breathalyzer'. The device checked your unique genetic thumbprint before deciding whether or not to open the door.

"Should we just rip the thing off? Opvossu-Jesus asked. "It has worked on some other doors I have encountered..."

She grabbed grabbed the box, about to do that very thing.

"Stop!" I said, brushing her claw away. "You'll just make it lock forever!"

Opvossu-Jesus growled in frustration. "Then what do _you_ suggest?"

"Typical security codes are six digits long," Mara said. "Which means that a total of six hundred permutations are possible."

"That'll take forever!"

Opvossu-Jesus put her claws on the box again.

"Wait!" I cried. "Cool your jets! _I'm thinking!_ "

And then I saw it.

In my heat vision. Warm spots where fingers had been. "I...think I got something."

I told Mara which ones had been touched.

"That limits the permutations to thirty six," she answered. "Further detail about the buttons, such as the degrees of warmth and pressure, may narrow the choices even further, increasing our odds of success. Please describe each button in as much detail as you can."

I tried my best, mentioning how, for example, the number 6 seemed very warm, and that 2 only had a slight heat blotch.

"We now have one in four odds of guessing correctly on the first attempt."

"What about the Breathalyzer?"

Mara showed me a little cylindrical object that looked like pepper spray. "Before departing, Call left me with this device. It should serve our purposes well."

"How? I mean, we don't have Wren's DNA, do we?"

 _"There are advantages to working sanitation."_ She took a little vial out of a secret compartment in her forearm, inserting it into the mace.

In seconds we had the door open.

It turned out we needn't have bothered. The moment we passed the threshold, Bruno came rushing our way like the place were on fire.

"Oh my God! Oh my God!" he cried when he saw us. "I'm in hell!"

The man crossed himself. "Oh God! They've found me!"

"Bruno?" I said.

The man did a double-take. "...Newt! H-how good it is to see you! _Please do not kill me!_ "

"What are _you_ doing here?" I said.

"Hiding. What does it look like? Oh please, do not let your friends kill me either. Did I mention that your thighs are sexy? They are. I...was just too ashamed to say it before. _They are very nice._ "

I don't know what color my shell changed in response to his comment, but it felt like blushing, and I was drooling.

The man screamed and ran away.

Mara put a hand on my shoulder plate. "Honey, not to disappoint you, _but I think Bruno was lying about liking your thighs._ "

A long gray corridor lay ahead of me. Rows of closed offices. A lot of them smelled untouched, like no one had bothered to open them up, or even furnish them with furniture.

The lights flickered, switched to emergency backup lighting.

Did my parents travel down a corridor like this when taking their first flight to LV 426?

Had I been born yet?

I pictured mom with a `baby bump', dad leading her down the tunnel like they were marching down the aisle in a church, about to get married.

I pictured myself as a one year old, in a baby carrier, or maybe older, mom teaching me how to take my first steps as we boarded that ship to what would become my new home.

I glanced at my companion, then frowned in puzzlement as a thought occurred to me. "Mary. _You drowned_. How did you survive that?"

"I...have _breathing things_."

I stopped and stared. "Breathing things?"

She pointed to a spot on her neck plates, and a set of gills opened up.

 _"Wow."_

Mary smiled.

"I think the scientists must have tampered with your genetics."

"You...do not think that God made me this way?"

I shrugged. " _It...could be that too._ "

We kept going.

When I saw Big Blue staring back at me from the floor, I froze, scarcely believing my eyes. "It can't be real," I whispered. "I left it in an air duct!"

I picked it up, gawking at it.

It was real, all the way down to its seams and alien sleeping pocket.

I didn't notice the open door until a little woman came rushing out with a long black stick. "I am shocking you with a cattleprod now, okay?"

Before I could protest, Vela shocked me.

Vela Rels.

As I lay writhing on the ground, I heard my `family' growling at the woman. They wanted to kill her.

"No..." I groaned. "Friend."

I tried to gesture for them to stop, but voltage tends to lock up your body.

I spasmed, my spine not allowing me to turn my head. I could only stare at the grating as I convulsed. The stars swimming across my vision took me back to that time dad practiced the sleeper hold on me so long ago.

"No! No!" I heard Vela crying. "Stop! Do not kill me! I am not something you should kill!...What?"

She shrieked in pain. "Ow! You do not do that!"

When I stopped thinking about dad and at last picked myself up off the floor, I cried for my companions to stop, staring at the victim in worriment.

Not dead, but in a lot of pain.

The moment I understood the woman's predicament, I had to laugh.

They had shoved the cattle prod up her rear end.

"Good luck taking that out of your rectum, okay?"

Vela groaned unhappily.

I set Big Blue carefully to one side of the hallway, continuing on.

Wren's scent was stronger now. Well, the scent of death and decay that I associated with him, at least. I still didn't quite have a mastery of matching an odor to a person's face.

The tunnel opened up into a vast darkened chamber filled with black incense and swarms of flies.

A huge pentagram had been etched into the flooring, crusted with salt and blood, evil looking objects at every point, the forearm of a frost giant, an iron cauldron of something greasy, candles, burning sage, Ss'sik'chtokiwij body parts...

A gold thing glittered from the darkness at the center of this ritual...design, but the dismantled ceiling lights and fumes hid the object in shadow.

"What is all this?" Paisley Head asked.

I gritted my teeth in disgust. "I...don't know."

Ruth let out a low growl. "I think that is the least of our concerns."

"What?"

A moment later, the Carrion Crawler thing emerged from the inky blackness, silently baring its fangs as its tentacles whipped out.

Mary shrieked as the thing drew her into its mandibles, intent on crunching her like fresh lobster tail.

Mary spat acid, but this only annoyed the beast, making it angry enough to throw her into a wall.

When Disciple Sesquagob rushed in to attack, the thing's scorpion tail lashed out, skewered her like an olive, flinging her across the room.

The creature's tentacle shot out, snatching up Disciple's yet-to-be-named sister, its gaping shark-like maw reducing her to Paisley Headless.


	28. Chapter 33: Throne

So. After dispatching quite a few of my foes by means of prayer and divine assistance, I thought that, maybe, it could work against our carrion crawler.

Sadly, this time no magical or otherworldly weapons came to our aid.

In all honesty, why should they? I faced, more or less, _an_ _animal_ , not a demon, ghost or extra-dimensional phantom.

I mean, it's always good to pray, but when you're being chased by a shark or an angry grizzly bear, do you really expect to conquer your foe with weapons of the spirit? Not exactly.

No, I figured, what I needed was a really big sword. Like _Stormbringer_ , or a _Light Saber_.

As a rule, Light Sabers do not exist, at least not like in the movies. We have _laser cutters_ , but the beam is invisible, and cannot be used like a fencing rapier. Sometimes, like in a cloud of volcanic steam, you _might_ be able to see a beam, like you can see the beam of a sniper rifle after a smoke grenade, but it's nothing you can swing around and go `Vmmm' with.

Mr. Wren had used a laser knife to cut apart his Frost Giant. I guess he wanted to keep it handy, for he had left it by the edge of his pentagram.

"Guys. I got an idea."

I directed my `family' to spread out and attack the creature from the rear while I snatched up the laser.

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij couldn't penetrate the thing's tough armor, their efforts rewarded with violent bucking, and tentacles throwing them across the room.

The beast roared, ripping Opvossu-Jesus's arm out of its socket.

My alien kin shrieked in pain, but did not let the crippling injury slow her.

She wrapped her legs around the monster's back, clawing its shell with her one good arm.

I rushed to the laser knife, clicking the safety off.

The thing came after me, drool and slimy secretions dampening the floor as it reached out with its tentacles.

Disciple Sesquagob got in the way, protecting me from the beast's next assault. The monster tore the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's body in half.

Insects and insect-like creatures have the disgusting tendency to not die, even when vital parts of their body have been destroyed. This is why Disciple Sesquagob's upper torso could grab one of the monster's tentacles and claw it in the eye, even while her intestines lay on the floor, melting a hole into the level beneath.

It also explains why our headless victim kept clinging to the monster's centipede legs, blindly clawing at its underbelly.

The creature alternated between crawling on its rows of legs and raising itself into a half standing position. I caught it while it was rearing up, pressing the button on the laser knife as I made a vertical slash.

The beast shrieked and toppled forward, dropping the bulk of its massive body right on top of me.

One time I made the mistake of lying on dad's bed. He thought it oh-so-funny to plop his big body down on top of me, but I seriously couldn't breathe.

Funny, me freaking out about something like that, when I've spent most my life crawling through tiny air ducts, but I _trust_ air ducts not to move, _nor_ bear down and crush the oxygen out of me.

 _"Oh! I didn't know someone was on my bed!"_ That's the statement his action implied.

It wasn't just him being big or me being little, it was being pressed into the mattress, the blanket, breathing the same stale air, inhaling his carbon dioxide.

Fearing a slow asphyxiation, I screamed, I struggled, and when he at last let me go, I never risked lying in that bed again.

That's what I felt beneath the monster. Hot unbreathable gas, no air but my own exhalations.

I panicked, slicing everything within reach with the laser cutter. If I burned through the thing's rib cage or backside, and cut open a friend, well, could you really blame me? It wasn't like I could see that far ahead.

I waved the burning light back and forth in the dark oozing blubber until the knife got hot and I could feel it burning my claw as I held it.

I could see light. It looked like the view from inside a black balloon. I shrieked, making frantic ripping motions with my claws and the glowing object that caused me more and more searing pain the longer I held it.

I exploded from the carrion crawler's interior in a spray of black foul smelling goop that gushed out all over the floor in syrupy mounds. I felt like a foal coming out of its mother's stomach via C-section.

Mary Jorden stumbled back from the monster with a ragged slash running the length of her leg, collapsing on the floor.

"Mary!"

I ran over to her.

The creature raised its body again, flailing its tentacles.

It opened its maw, but its roar came out with a gurgle as it vomited out bile and chunks of vital organs from its interior.

The thing toppled like a felled tree and lay dead, its death ooze gushing all over the floor in a goopy black tidal wave.

I heard clapping.

A plump, pigtailed female figure emerged from the darkness. "See? I _knew_ that nonviolent pacifist thing was just an act!"

I swallowed. "Claudia?"

"Hello, Becky," the woman said.

I gawked at her. "How did you get here? Where were you this whole time? Why didn't that thing attack you?"

She pointed into the darkness. " _There's a security booth. With protective runes._ "

I sighed through my nasal flutes. " _So you just stood there and watched the action._ "

Claudia stepped closer, but then stopped when my family members started growling. "Becky...you've provided us an invaluable service. _That thing...the centipede..._ that was the last thing standing in the way between us and the acquisition of a brand new territory of incredible strategic and military importance. I can't thank you enough for this."

 _"Okay..."_ I said. "So, I have a _friend_ in this _new territory._ We really need to go in and see if he's okay."

She clapped her hands. "It's as if you read my mind! _Wren's been meaning to show you the throne!_ "

I swallowed hard. "Throne?"

Now, as the gloom appeared to have lifted somewhat (or maybe my sight had adjusted) I could see the obelisks in the center of the chamber.

Claudia led me to those things. Already I could feel the cold of that other realm chilling my body.

We stepped through.

The place on the other side looked like the domed apse end of a basilica, but made entirely of ice and entrails. It appeared to be the monster's lair.

"Claudia," I said. "You should know the answer to this question: Is all that gory shit outside really necessary to make these things work, or do you guys basically take the Scientific Method as a loose guideline?"

"I don't know. You'll have to ask Wren about that. All I know is, _it works_. Besides, _I saw you praying._ "

"I'm not the one with the trillion dollar scientific research station."

I dropped on all fours, sniffing for Christie's scent.

"What are you doing?"

"My friend got lost in here... _somewhere_. I want to get him back."

"I'd hardly call Gary Christie a friend."

I wasn't surprised she knew the man. She seemed to be privy to lots of other information she shouldn't know. "He's not an enemy...and I care about him."

Claudia smiled at me, that same expression she gave when I asked her for human playmates, or had questions about boys. It said, ` _Oh isn't that cute. It thinks its a person.'_ "You can look for your friend later. Right now we have much more pressing issues to deal with. You _do_ want to help your friends in the station, don't you?"

"Yeah?" I kinda wished there was a skeptical eyebrow I could raise. "And how do you propose to do that?"

Claudia led me down a passage that looked like the inside of a heart valve. A few yards down, we came to... _The Throne_.

The chair stood in a room that kinda reminded me of the interior of a frog heart, but frosted over with huge icicles, the `Throne' itself looking like a torture device from a science fiction movie. It had the vague shape of a dentist's chair, surrounded by large, unfriendly looking machines with drill attachments, needle things, and pointy blade-like embellishments.

All black, shiny, seat and back supporter molded in a way only a S&M enthusiast would find comfortable.

A dead Frost Giant occupied the chair, a pair of drill thingies buried in the temples of his skull.

"You want me to sit in _that?_ " I cried.

"From the information we've gathered, the machinery was not the cause of the creature's death. It used the throne to control its environment for some time before something else in its body failed. We think it starved to death."

"And you want me to pull him out of that thing and jab those giant drills through my skull."

"We've stuck things in your brain before, Becky."

"Yeah? Well this is ten times worse! Those things are _huge!_ You don't even know what any of this stuff does!"

"We know enough. We've spent a great deal of time studying this creature...Well, _when the centipede wasn't here._ "

"And how did you do that? You haven't even tried it on a human subject."

"Actually, that's where you're wrong. You see, this isn't the only throne. We've actually put a human being in the throne at Site B...He died."

"So what makes you think it won't kill me?"

"Your alien physiology makes you stronger than homo sapien. Your brains are larger, your hearts and bodies tougher. Admittedly we're still taking a risk, but it's a good risk."

 _"For you,"_ I challenged. "Not so good for me."

"Do you want to save your friends or not? They're all going to crash and burn if you don't get in that throne and start moving things."

"How do you know what's what this thing can do?"

"You've seen how it can open portals to other places. _Our cameras spotted you traveling through them._ If this is a command center, there must be something for you to control, and I'm guessing it's the portals...the real question is, are you going to do it?"

I stared at my `family', but since they didn't understand a word of this, and the androids were frozen in thought, no one offered me any advice.

"No," I said. "This is nuts. I'm not doing it."

Claudia frowned. _"I thought you might say that."_

She took a device out of her pocket, pushed a button, and then it was like I'd just been given the mother of all migraine headaches.

I screamed, clutched my head, rolling on the floor in pain.

"In addition to the probes and sensors we've inserted in your skull, we've also injected a little _behavioral control module_ inside your gray matter. Ordinarily, we don't need to use it, since you're, _for the most part, a very cooperative subject._ But now... _you seem...not so much._ "

My head was swimming. The room had taken on the appearance of the cartoon video for _Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds_.

My Ss'sik'chtokiwij companions growled, advancing on the woman.

"Ah-ah!" she scolded. "Stay back, or..."

She pushed the button again, and the splitting headache returned.

"Please!" I yelled. "Please God! I'll do anything!"

Claudia pocketed the device. _"I knew you'd listen to reason._ "

She allowed me a moment to recover.

"Wait," I groaned, getting up from the icy floor. "I can join minds..."

I frowned, realizing I really couldn't. My worms had been bitten off.

"You can communicate with the dead?"

"Not anymore," I sighed in resignation. "Help me move the body."


	29. Chapter 34: Darkness and Della Reese

"Stop," Ssunamrozedrah called as we worked to undo the dead creature's restraints. "Do not do this yet. I myself will speak with the dead."

Claudia turned around and frowned at her. " _You?_ What makes you think I can trust you?"

"I've seen a machine similar to this before. I am familiar with the symbols of the Yaotja and paleskin. Plus I have a personal stake in saving this station as well. If you wish to not die, I suggest you allow me to do this thing."

Claudia stepped back, waving her on. "Hurry."

"Wait," I said to Ssunamrozedrah. "What about Lacy? Did you take care of _her?_ "

"If you mean `Made a promise to,' then yes, she `Took care of me.'"

My enemy entered the chamber. "Claudia. No more games. When am I going to see my children?"

"You really think they'll want to see _you_? Looking like _that?_ "

 _"That's for me to decide."_

"They're property of the U.S. government."

"I know. I don't care. I want to see them."

"What are you talking about?" I cried.

Neither one answered me.

Ssunamrozedrah, in the meantime, had crawled up in the Frost Giant's lap, running her mind tentacles up into his brain. Her body position, and the way she planted her mouth on the corpse, it all seemed vaguely sexual, but I guess that couldn't be helped.

"I got you drone footage," Claudia said to Lacy. "You've seen the video feeds from social media."

 _"Those can be altered_. _I want to see them. With my own...eyes._ "

"I'm afraid that's impossible."

"Claudia!" I said. "What are you guys talking about? Why wouldn't Lacy's children want to see her? Aren't they alien just like her?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Not exactly. Your friend is possessed by the same delusion you are, except she can provide us names and social security numbers."

Lacy gave her a shove. "It's no delusion, bitch! _I have a fucking name! And a job!_ "

"Yeah? _You're also officially dead!_ "

"What?" I cried. "You're...human?""

Before I could get any answers, I heard Ssunamrozedrah's voice calling to me. It seemed she had finished her little act of necromancy. "I'm sorry... _Becky_. Someone still has to use the chair."

Claudia pushed a few buttons on the machinery, and the alien drill press and other attachments disengaged themselves from the dead body. "The system will become unstable if we leave this chair unoccupied for too long. I suggest you hurry."

"And how do you know that?" I asked.

 _"The centipede was here for a reason._ "

"My Ss'sik'chtokiwij kin helped me pull the body out of the chair, and believe me, I didn't have an easy time with it. Not only was the guy heavy, he was _necrotic_. Parts of his carcass actually _stuck to the chair_.

His torso came off his lower body, spilling intestines, fluids and other bodily organs all over the chair and floor. It smelled awful. I could even see little wormy things crawling around in the sludge.

I cringed. "This doesn't look... _sanitary_. Could you...get some Lysol or something?"

"There's no time."

I clawed the gunk out of the seat the best I could. "Great. Not only will I have dirty things going into my brain, I'll probably also have creepy crawlies going up my butt."

"I'll see if I can get Bruno to clean up a little while you're hooked up. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about the contacts. Time is of the essence."

She pressed a button, making the drill press lower a couple feet, closer to my height.

"You probably killed the last guy by drilling through the wrong place in his skull."

"No, I don't think it was that. It has an automatic sensor."

"Lots of things with automatic sensors have killed people."

"We can only hope this isn't one of them. Get in the chair."

What could I really do? I said a prayer and did what she said.

The chair was a really bad fit. It had fins and ridges that stuck me in places that felt really uncomfortable. I just knew I'd end up with the backache from hell if I came out of this thing alive.

And then the drill press descended.

"Hold still," Claudia warned. "And lean back. There's a neck clamp."

I didn't want to leave this kind of thing to chance, so I obeyed, despite how uncomfortably the blade things on the chair poked me in the ribs.

The collar snapped around my neck with the suddenness of a bear trap.

A second later, the drills tore holes into the sides of my head.

I can't say the experience was pleasant, but the machines, at the very least, did their job fast.

Apertures opened in the center of the bits, and before I could adequately prepare myself, I felt rods harpooning through my brain tissue.

Everything went dark.

The very first time I ever died, I saw Jesus.

Unlike all the paintings and whatnot, he was wearing a flight jacket, a t-shirt and jeans. I found him on the shore of a beautiful lake (even more beautiful to me because I'd never seen a natural lake before. The closest thing I'd come to that was the time when the showers in the base malfunctioned and we had a foot of water in the public bathroom) in some green wooded area in the mountains.

He played ` _Thy Strong Word Didst Cleave The Darkness_ ' on a double bass. An eagle swooped over my head, perching on a rock next to him.

I grinned when I noticed the Airwolf patch on his sleeve.

Jesus played the chorus of _Thy Strong Word_ , rolling out a few bars of the slow violin song from Airwolf before setting the bow aside. "I knew this would make you more comfortable. The last thing I want is for you to be afraid."

When those rods shot into my gray (green?) matter, I thought I'd be going back to that, to hang out with him to stay.

No such luck.

My vision filled with floaty sparkly things just like that time I experienced a sleeper hold, and then a hallucinatory sea of sparkling red patterns swirled around me, looking like warped distorted topographic maps of undulating snakes and ocean waves.

The waves washed over, and a foggy sort of consciousness returned to me.

I saw nothing, only darkness, but I could hear, I could think. It was like I'd been placed in a sensory deprivation tank.

"Becky! Becky! Are you okay?" Claudia's voice had a faraway sound, like it had been recorded in an echo chamber.

Ssunamrozedrah and the others called to me. "Becky! Newt! Speak to us!"

"I...I'm alive." It didn't sound like my voice, but I had to quiet the voices somehow. The noise hurt my head. "I...think."

"What do you see?" Claudia asked.

I scrunched up my face. "Della Reese."

I don't know how else to describe it. The thing in front of me looked like a bald albino version of Tess from _Touched by an Angel_ , with bulldog teeth protruding from her lower lip. She had this wild eyed look on her face like I needed to make some serious changes in my life and she'd kick my butt if I didn't do exactly what she told me to do.

"You're actually seeing Della Reese." Claudia sounded skeptical.

I shrugged, but didn't know if she could see it. "She looks really weird...she's dressed like that dead guy we just moved."

After a pause, Claudia said, _"Don't go into the light._ "

"What light? I'm not seeing ghosts."

"You're seeing Della Reese. She's a ghost."

"I always thought she was an angel."

 _"Oh good Lord!_ Just don't die on me, okay?"

"Okay."

"Becky, I want you to describe everything you see. I want to help you walk through...whatever it is."

 _"Gee/ That's a first!"_

"Would you just...not fight me and do what I say?"

I sighed. "Fine. It's nothing but darkness and Della Reese."

I heard a male voice muttering something.

"Bruno wants to know if you can see George Jefferson."

"Ask her if she can change the channel," the male voice added.

"He wants-"

"I heard him," I groaned.

"Maybe she is picking up TV reception."

The pale... _thing_ opened its mouth, and a flood of growly noises came out, reminding me of that weird language the Orcs used in all those _Lord of the Rings_ movies.

Claudia and Bruno were still talking.

"Shut up, guys! _She's saying something!_ "

"Does it start with `I have a message from God?'"

 _"...No."_

"Oh! It is so sad! _She is going to the other place!_ "

I groaned in annoyance. "Uh...Ssunamrozedrah? Could you...translate for me? Uh...I mean, she's talking fast, but..."

I felt a weight pressing into my lap and stomach, then a mouth kissing me, wormy things crawling up my nasal ducts.

And then I saw Ssunamrozedrah standing next to Albino Della Reese.

The `angel' kept talking.

"I've gleaned some of this language from the carcass," Ssunamrozedrah muttered. "It wants a password."

"How the hell are we supposed to get that? I don't even see a screen!"

"Say _amnulhex urzevmum_ ," Ssunamrozedrah coached.

Thousands of pale green glowing symbols whirled around me in the darkness. "Holy fuck."

Since the whole apparatus relied on a neural interface, I could highlight a symbol by just looking at it, and turn it red with just an impulse.

"Now what do I do? I can't so much as fart without screwing something up!"

"I suggest you calm down and find a way to think of nothing. Or, perhaps, focus on inward thoughts."

I crossed my eyes, went into my memory palace. "Is there a reset button? I need to cancel what I picked."

Ssunamrozedrah drew the appropriate symbol on my classroom talcboard. "I think you should try this."

I did. The highlighted sections cleared out. "Thanks. Did you happen to _glean_ a password?"

"I'm sorry. He lacked a consciousness, and I was doing my best not to vomit from the contact with his rotting meat."

I sighed. "Great. Now what? It's not like Big Bird can just open her mouth and join you in my head!"

"Agreed, but being an artificial intelligence has its advantages. For instance, I can hook cables to device components and interact with the programming."

I blinked, and a weird gold-orange shape materialized in the darkness, a thing that looked like the results of a Ss'sik'chtokiwij queen having sex with the actual Big Bird from Sesame Street.

"Uh... _Big Bird?_ Is that really you?"

The creature purred in amusement as she held up an 8X10 glossy photo of... _Android Big Bird_. "Were you expecting _that_ , perhaps?"

"Uh...so this your avatar, huh?"

"No. It is _me_. I originate from an educational program...are you experiencing memory loss?"

I sighed. "Let's talk about that later. I need you to hack a computer."

The creature froze. "I am not familiar with these symbols...also, I agree that your digital assistant _does_ bear a slight resemblance to Della Reese."

"Is there...anything we can do to help?"

"...Yes. If you can translate any of these symbols into English equivalents, it may be possible for me to build a rudimentary decryption module and bypass the firewall. For starters, please locate the number one and zero."

The moment I relayed the information from Ssunamrozedrah's mind, the screens restructured themselves, and I found myself surrounded by something that looked like a giant bubble made of Wheel of Fortune tiles, the exposed white ones showing our uncovered `answers,' the green `covered' panels showing the yet-to-be translated alien symbols. "I thought a simpler graphical user interface would make your part of the decryption process easier to understand."

"Cute," I said. "Real cute."

"Menabera pamtacbu yulgadge nuxjoyah deprero buwneme," Della Reese growled.

"What did she say?"

"It's nothing. Hurry up."

"Bashimi mubcawcre tuxrissi oxxodaxar," Della repeated, hands on her hips. "Xilhristi etkerbem lidyatge edsarrup!"

As I translated more for Big Bird, the albino got up in my face, snarling the phrase again. "Xilhristi etkerbem lidyatge edsarrup!"

I frowned. "That...doesn't sound like nothing. What's she saying?"

Ssunamrozedrah sighed. "She's telling you you only have five minutes to enter a password, _or else._ "

 _"Five minutes?_ What happens after that?"

Ssunamrozedrah didn't answer.

"Ssunamrozedrah?"

Her facial expression looked apologetic. "A corrosive toxin will be introduced through your neural injection sites, your brain tissue will liquefy and drain out of your skull, and you will die."

Since we had already translated the number four, I understood its threat completely when Della said it.

I also understood three.


	30. Chapter 35: The Spark

"Fovcowa yahloc," Tess said. Obviously this meant "Two."

I wrinkled my face at an...oddly familiar odor. "Do you...smell Lucky Charms?"

My Ss'sik'chtokiwij companion scowled. "I do not think it will be so lucky when it arrives."

I whimpered. "I'm trying to hurry. Really I am."

And then I saw _him_. The ideal male.

Well, the ideal _thing_ that I, as a Ss'sik'chtokiwij, could safely mate with without killing.

Although larger than me, I admired his muscular form, the blind bug face similar to mine, the mouth on its massive chest, designed for the safe hatching and delivery of larva.

"Ssunamrozedrah," I whispered. "Do you see _that? The male?_ "

She glanced at the creature and frowned. "You appear to be having what humans call a wet dream. However, the vividness of this one is a bad sign. I believe you should avoid him. Just like the...Lucky Charms."

"Hurry, Big Bird!" I cried.

 _"I'll find you, and go right through the walls we made..."_ The catchy sounds of the recording reverberated through my mind.

Music? At a time like this? "Big Bird, are you messing around with their radio?"

"Negative. The song entitled `Colors' by artist Beck is part of a collection in my personal database."

I groaned. " _Well thanks for picking a lively funeral dirge!_ "

Big Bird let out a chuckling purr. "I prefer to think of it as a victory song."

My jaw dropped. "You actually _hacked the system?_ "

In lieu of an answer, Della Reese stopped counting down and rolled her neck, giving me this expression that seemed to say, `I'm not happy about this, baby girl, but I guess I'll have to accept you.' More growly Orc words came out.

"We're in," said Ssunamrozedrah.

The Wheel of Fortune tiles dropped away, and I was looking at darkness again.

A tremor ran through my body. It felt like an earthquake.

"What was that?"

"Translating your request," Big Bird answered.

Della Reese growled something.

"What did she say?"

"She said that the vehicle this complex is tethered to has just entered the earth's gravitational field."

The albino digital assistant growled again.

"And that we will be entering the atmosphere in approximately fifteen minutes."

"What do I do now?" I cried. "I don't know the first thing about how this thing works!"

"I believe I can be of assistance to that end." Big Bird conjured up a digital model of the Auriga with a complicated hive-like complex superimposed over it, apparently the _thing_ we currently inhabited.

The space station, of course, intersected with a huge blue orb.

"That's great, but how do I do the thing with the portals? _Can_ I do anything with them?"

Big Bird paused. "Processing."

I groaned. "Well don't process too long!"

"I understand the time constraint. Unfortunately, I need time to familiarize my data matrix with the operating system."

"How much time do you think _that_ will take?"

"My apologies, but there is a high statistical probability that we will not survive this event."

 _"Event_? That's what you call being within inches of a fiery death on the surface of the earth?"

"...Yes."

I was panicking now. It felt like the world was closing in on me. "I don't believe this. I'm going to die, and I can't even leave this chair."

"I wouldn't recommend moving," said the yellow alien. "Several of the leads and units of interface equipment have attached themselves to sensitive regions of your brain. Any sudden move could potentially be fatal."

I said a silent prayer.

I don't know much about science, but I've heard that all the religious stuff in your mind is located at the front part of your brain. I've also heard that the most evil men in history have one thing in common: It's all dark in that lobe.

Due to the machinery's interface with my brain, I could see a lot of mental operations that you normally never get to see in visual form, prayer being one of them.

The impulse appeared like a glowing Koosh ball-jellyfish thing in the darkness, illuminating a confusing jumble of alien words (possibly something to do with the machine systems).

What is a soul? What part of me is a soul and what is my mind?

I died. I should know the answer to this one, but it's a blank spot in my memory.

One day at Hadley's Hope, I watched this movie where the devil went around taking people's souls, leaving the soulless person doing all kinds of crazy things to get it back. The idea scared me so much that I asked Pastor Budd about it.

"You _are_ your soul, Rebecca," he told me. "If someone took your soul, it would be like taking the battery out of a moon rover. You'd be dead."

"Even if someone replaced the battery?"

He chuckled. "That wouldn't be you."

That answered my other questions about zombies, too.

He told me that the soul and body were inseparable, that at Judgment Day, we wouldn't be ghosts floating around, God would raise our bodies with our souls, to a more glorified form.

I asked him what happened if you're a pirate with a pegleg, if your soul just goes without a leg until Judgment Day, but he said I was just being silly.

I asked Brice about it one time when he was babysitting me and Timmy.

I can't remember why he was watching us, but I remember sitting on a bench in his tool shed, watching him operate on a piece of farm equipment as he gave his two cents.

"We're bottled sparks. An electrical disturbance inside a bone container. Some evolutionary fluke allowed you to be aware of it all, kind of like _Short Circuit_. Another one of nature's cruel jokes."

I glanced at his TV monitor, at the moment showing Doctor Who. "If Daleks existed, would they be nothing but bottled sparks too?"

"Probably."

The video now showed a scene of one of those Dalek robots opening up, revealing the fleshy monster inside. "Are you sure human beings aren't like that? You know, just an alien creature that's driving around a _thing?_ "

The man's face got a faraway look. "Well, _in a way we are...There's a disgusting thing inside your cranial cavity that moves your body around._ "

"Yeah, but what if that disgusting thing is actually being controlled by-"

"An even more disgusting thing?" he joked. "Hmmm... _how would it fit in there?_ "

"No, I mean, what if the soul is just kinda driving the brain around?"

Brice tightened the bolts on...whatever it was he was working on. "Oh, you mean kinda like _The Host_? That Stephanie Myer story?"

I frowned, idly kicked my feet. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, it kinda sucked for the humans in that scenario..." He put his tool down, stroking his beard. He probably got it all greasy. "Of course, if the human body is basically a vegetable with a glowing jellyfish thing inside the head..."

"Yeah, and the soul can go _somewhere else_ when it dies, right?"

He sprayed compressed air into the machine, screwed down a panel. " _Good a theory as any, I suppose..._ "

Now, stuck in an alien death chair with harpoons in my brain, I stared at some of the displays illuminated by my frontal lobe activation, wondering about this.

Did the dog wag the tail or the tail wag the dog...

If I believed it was all matter and impulses controlling me, then I was doomed, completely at the mercy of an AI that didn't know that it was doing.

But if I believed that I had control over my muscles, mental, mechanical, physical, if I could `wag the dog', perhaps I still had a chance to save everybody on the station.

When I came to the conclusion that the operating system of the alien computer system was a construct, just like my memory palace, all the jumbled pieces snapped into place.

I visualized a light bulb, imagined pulling the string.

It clicked on, and I found myself surrounded by a sea of computer menus.

"Big Bird!" I cried. "I think I figured something out."

"Me too," she answered. "I've just transferred my data matrix into the behavior module inside your brain."

"So did the dog wag the tail, or the tail wag the dog?"

"I do not know. There is a film bearing that title, but it will be unhelpful to our situation."

"Good grief!" I groaned. "You are such a bird brain!"

"...Thank you."

I sighed. "All right...Presuming that...because of the wires, this...thing...is now one big extension of my body..."

I reshaped the whole mess of computer arrays into a submarine interior, then scowled at my surroundings, my fuzzy yellow alien navigator in a Donald Duck sailor's outfit, my pale skinned digital assistant, my Ss'sik'chtokiwij second in command...

I unrolled a blueprint of the frozen...intestinal tract dimension on the navigator's desk, overlaid it was a clear plastic diagram of the Auriga, and one of the earth. In my mind, my claws became human hands, making the task heck of a lot easier.

The submarine rocked like an enemy had just hit us with a torpedo.

"We must hurry, Newt," Big Bird said. "We have little time."

"I don't understand. What do I do?"

"It's your metaphor. Do whatever you think is best."

I tried to just grab the Auriga diagram and slide it away from the earth, but the plastic sheet wouldn't budge. It only made the torpedo effect more pronounced. "Well, shit."

I bowed my head and prayed again.

All of a sudden, my hand glowed and sparkled, something like butterflies wiggling out from under my palms.

When I lifted my hand, it held a gold marker.

I sighed as I stared at it. "It would be great if I could just...draw a big portal in front of the ship and take us out of harm's way, but if I can't pull the thing out of earth's orbit..."

I set the marker back down on the table.

Big Bird picked it up, offering it to me. "You never know until you try."

Rolling my eyes, I uncapped the marker, drawing a big circle around the nose end of the Auriga.

"I'm daydreaming," I muttered. "This isn't going to do shit."

Not really believing it would do any good, I added a kitty cat head to the top of the circle as a joke.

To my astonishment, the circle I drew stayed where it was, glittering and sparkling around the space station's nose like one of those retina burning aluminum-magnesium fireworks that you wave around on holidays.

"The tremors have stopped," I heard Claudia saying. "Bruno, go check the Auriga."

"Yes, ma'am."

I glanced at my fuzzy navigation officer. "What's our status, Big Bird? We still going to die?"

Big Bird froze in thought.

A moment later, I saw the image of the earth vanish from the desk.

I frantically searched the submarine for the missing plastic sheet. "Hey! What just happened?"

"Insufficient data."

"Where's the earth? Are we still going to crash into it?"

"Impossible. We are millions of light years from the nearest known celestial object."

"Run that by me again? _Millions of light years? Where are_ we?"

"Insufficient data."

My `submarine' had a periscope, my metaphorical symbol for exterior cameras. When I looked through them, it didn't tell me a whole hell of a lot. Neither did my video game-like navigational arrays, piped directly from the Auriga and the alien thing.

"Am I to understand that we are out of danger?" Ssunamrozedrah asked.

Big Bird froze. "My sensors do not detect any immediate threat."

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij turned her attention to me. "I am very uncomfortable. Do you need any further help with translations?"

Uncomfortable! I thought. How do you think I feel?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say it exactly like that."

I rolled my eyes. Even when I was thinking, I was actually communicating. Non apology apology, I was thinking. But in a louder thought, I stated, "I...think we might be fine."

 _"We're good, baby girl,"_ the digital assistant agreed in a Della Reese voice.

"Big Bird," I said. "That's a little too much."

The digital assistant's voice took on a spooky alien robot sound. " _Is this better?_ "

"I'm leaving," Ssunamrozedrah groaned. "Let me know if you need anything."

She vanished from the submarine, and I no longer had her weight pressing on me.

Now that her body didn't obstruct my view, I could see my surroundings again.

It appeared I had done something to the temperature controls. Ice was melting from the walls, the ceiling. The place still looked like an intestine, but I sensed the temperature increased to a comfortable seventy degrees, defrosting the massive ice box.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Bruno showing Claudia a tablet computer. "This the video feed from outside the station. I had it recorded because of the signal interference. She has created portal."

Claudia furrowed her brow. ".. _.is that a kitty cat head?_ "

Bruno chuckled. " _It's incredible!_ Is it not?"

"Not...that I'm complaining, but where the fuck is the earth?...Or _Mars_ , or _Jupiter_ , or _the sun_ for that matter?"

Bruno pointed to a spot on the screen. "There is sun." Nervous laugh. "Well, _a sun_. Something is wrong with its spectral type?"

"Jesus."

Claudia waved her hand in front of my face. "Becky. Newt. You in there?"

I frowned. "...Yeah."

"First of all, thank you for saving all our asses. I really, really appreciate that."

I sighed through my nasal flutes. " _But._ "

"Becky, where the hell are we?"

I shrugged, hoping the sudden movement wouldn't cause irreparable brain damage and terminate my life after I did it. "I don't know. _I...just drew a circle._ "

"Right. _With a kitty cat head._ "

I grinned. " _It actually...showed up that way? In reality?_ "

She held up the tablet for me to see.

The video recording began shaky, as the entire station had begun its descent into the earth's atmosphere. Through the heat mirage, I could see the seemingly endless blue expanse of the earth's sky, the big misty white streams of cloud cover...

Just when I noticed things getting bad, panels flying off and burning up in re-entry and whatnot, a giant sparkly line appeared in the air, making a wide sweeping elliptical motion around the camera's field of view, superimposing the void of space over the blue backdrop of the earth.

And then, like a paintbrush in some silly cartoon, I saw the sparkly things doing a slap dab kitty head on one side of the glowing ring.

The camera rumbled through the hole in the sky, emerging in a starry void. A flock of geese that had inadvertently accompanied us on this voyage now floated dead or imploded around the perimeter of the craft, others making final desperate gasps from pockets of moist air from clouds that had come along for the ride.

Claudia put the tablet away. "No ideas at all?"

"None," I said.

She scowled and rubbed her chin like Penn Jillette used to do on _Fool Us_ when he couldn't figure out how someone did a magic trick. "What...were you thinking when you... _made_ the portal?"

"Dunno. I just...was thinking about how I wanted to go someplace safe I could call home. You know, somewhere I could be free."

"Well, well, Becky! It looks like you got your wish!...The question is, _can you wish us back to our own solar system?_ "

If it were really true, if I truly had gone to the place I wished for, I didn't exactly want to go back. "I...I dunno. I...don't really know what I'm doing. If I did, I'd be able to get out of this chair. I mean, it wouldn't do us any good if I just put us back in earth's atmosphere again..."

 _"Try,_ Becky," Claudia said. "Please try. We can't sustain ourselves forever like this. The fuel is almost gone, and _our food supply..._ "

"Could you also do something about music?" Bruno asked.

"Music? What music?"

"I have heard Beck Colors five times, now it plays Survivor _High On You_ and Van Halen _Dreams_. Please stop this."

"All right all right," I groaned, returning to the submarine.

I marched up to the navigation desk. "Big Bird..."

I couldn't finish. My first in command had redecorated the counter with a Dungeons and Dragons board designed to look like the vehicle's throne room, a set of pewter figurines modeled after everyone's exact likenesses standing in the positions they occupied in real life.

"What's all this?"

With a purring chuckle, Big Bird offered me the gold marker.

"What am I doing with that? Dropping Claudia into space?"

She gave me a mischievous shrug and tilt of her head.

Yeah, I hated the woman. In fact, I even kinda wanted her to die for all of this. But when I took the marker, I found I couldn't follow through.

I sighed, laying the marker down. "I can't. God wouldn't want me to."

With an even more mischievous churring sound, Big Bird brought a dollhouse-like model of the Auriga out of storage, opening it up so I could see all the rooms. _"Hmmm?_ "

I stared at the figurines, examined the `dollhouse.'

I didn't see anything important, like the location of Ernie's kids, and the other creatures he mentioned.

I _did_ , however, notice several areas of the station I could make interesting use of. The question was, did I want to move my enemies, or the Ss'sik'chtokiwij...or if it actually worked, and didn't end up with someone floating outside in the vacuum.

My first thought had been to sacrificially (or maybe selfishly, depending on your perspective) draw a circle around my throne, but then I decided my plan could backfire, killing everyone on the station.

I uncapped the marker. "Claudia, if this kills you, it really wasn't my intention."

I drew a loose circular outline around the bases of the Bruno and Claudia figurines, closing the shape. I heard screams as the figures vanished.

"Oh no! What happened! Did I kill them?"

Big Bird made a churr sound. "Sensors indicate two large foreign bodies in liquid algae reservoir at Sector 13B. They appear to be damp, but very much alive."

"Do you have any video?"

The fuzzy creature switched on a monitor, showing me a live feed from one of the Auriga's closed circuit cameras.

Sure enough, I caught sight of two `swamp things' frantically paddling toward a railing in spinach-like glop. I chuckled.

My amusement was short lived. I still didn't know how to safely remove myself from the throne. "I'm going to die in this chair, aren't I?"

"Insufficient data."

"Big Bird, please. Isn't there _something_ you can do to get me out of this thing? I don't want to be stuck like this forever!"

The yellow thing froze, jabbered with Albino Della Reese for a moment. "I am sorry, Becky. This equipment appears to be permanent."

I started crying and wouldn't stop.

My kin stared at me, but what could they do to help?

Big Bird gave me a mental hug. "Please don't cry."

When I failed to stop, she played _Don't Cry_ by Guns N' Roses. I kept crying.

"Becky..." She paused in thought, conferred with Bulldog Mouth. "Becky, I have an idea. Please, come with me."

She led me through a hatch, through the crew's cramped little bunk room, into another compartment.

There, on the floor in front of me, lay a large bathtub-like machine, shaped like a human body, its interior filled with a pink glowing light.

She waved a wing at the contraption. "Please. Lay down in this."

I frowned. "What is it?"

Big Bird gave me a kindly bob of her head. " _Me._ "

I eyed her with suspicion. "What do you mean... _me?_ "

"I am doing you a great favor. Please, get inside. I do not enjoy seeing you weep."

I kept staring at the machine. It reminded me of one of those science fiction programs where the evil mastermind makes a bunch of monsters with a cookie cutter-like molding machine. "You want me to get in there."

She nodded. "Until I can find information on how to safely disengage you from the equipment, this is the best I can do. Just please, do not be sad."

I made no promises. I just gave her a skeptical look, standing over the...thing. "All...right. I guess...I'll try anything."

I stepped into the machine and laid down.

At first, nothing happened. I just laid in a bathtub, more or less.

But then, after a few moments of feeling foolish, a blue liquid slowly surged into the tub, encasing my body with a tingling foam that numbed everything it touched.

My arms and legs lost all sensation, then my chest.

When I could no longer breathe, I panicked. "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"

 _"Calm yourself,"_ Big Bird purred. " _It's part of the process_. If you stay at your current emotional level, you will overtax your heart and breathing system and you truly will die."

"But I really can't breathe!" I stammered.

"I am taking over your basic functions. If you sincerely wish to escape your confinement, you must allow me to take over."

"You mean calm down and let myself die."

"Becky, sometimes great rewards can only come by means of great risk. You are miserable in your current state. You fear you will die motionless in a chair. I am merely offering an alternative. I believe this could possibly make you less sad, but it is also an exchange that requires the human emotion of trust. _Do you trust me, Becky?_ "

I sighed, gave her a slight nod (I was too numb to do much more than that) but really I was at the point of accepting my own death. I allowed myself to let my breathing go, to let my heartbeat disappear.

The foam covered my whole head, and I blacked out for an entire minute.

When I came to, I still couldn't breathe or feel a heartbeat, but I was out of the chair.

I lifted my hands and found them to be pale and human.

Well, _human-ish._ The weren't as wrinkly as they were supposed to look.

I heard a faint humming sound everywhere, the kind of sound you hear when you push power on a computer.

I looked down and saw that I wore a gray jumpsuit, one that seemed to have never been graced by comfort wrinkles or perspiration.

I let out a sudden gasp as realization dawned on me.

I was a robot!


	31. Chapter 36: Search

"But Pastor Budd!" I remember saying that day when I asked about souls. "A rover doesn't change when you replace the battery."

He smiled, put a hand on my shoulder. "That's because a rover isn't a living thing. Besides, if you take everything out of a rover, but leave the shell, it's not the same car. It may look the same on the outside, but you can tell the difference just by how it drives, how it looks under the hood."

"So souls are more like the engine."

"Yeah. I'd say that would be a better metaphor."

I thought back to this as I stared at my robotic hand.

The gasp I made had been forced. I didn't need to breathe.

I turned my head and found several cables plugged into it, connecting me to the throne. I tried pulling them out, but then I noticed parts of my... _hard drive_ coming out with it, so I had to unscrew parts and plug them back in where they were supposed to go. I had all the information in my brain, and I had android speed, so it only took half a minute to do all that.

I stood up, brushed myself off, examining my body, still locked in the chair.

I still didn't look very comfortable. The vice-like metal restraint still remained around my neck, the furniture piece prodding me in ways that wouldn't feel good to anyone.

To Bruno's credit, the seat _actually had_ been cleaned. Though he couldn't do a really thorough job for fear of causing brain damage, it kinda me feel a little bad about dropping him into the algae. But hey, he was still alive, so we could laugh about it.

As I watched steaming saliva dribbling out the corners of my mouth, I was reminded of the time I made fun of Nellie in the hospital, why I did what I did, and how wrong it was.

I deserved this. The only thing missing was the mockery.

I think I had this idea that people who were retarded, comatose or had a stroke `weren't there' anymore, that they, I don't know, left their bodies or something, or maybe I thought I could say something shocking to bring them back to lucid communication?

At any rate, I found myself thinking back to a book one of my teachers showed me in school, `The Butterfly And The Diving Bell,' a novel written by a paraplegic.

I realized that, if the French paralyzed guy was `there' enough to write a novel blinking his eyes a lot, if he was aware enough to notice people talking around him like a piece of furniture, Nellie probably heard me making fun of her, and I'd more or less given one of my dearest friends in the colony a final bitch slap to the face for no reason at all.

Worse, she'd never be able to speak up and tell me how horrible a person I was, or ask for my apology. I could only hope the neurons sending sound waves to her brain didn't process it as anything other than meaningless sound.

Maybe what just happened to me was the mockery. Maybe this was God's way of saying, "Now who's the E.T. phoning home now?" It _was_ ironic.

"You're still taking care of my breathing, Big Bird?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Plus other unconscious processes, such as the neuron group that prevents you from urinating when you dream of a toilet, or talking audibly in your sleep."

"I don't have to pee, do I?"

"No, not yet. But I think we may have been a little hasty in removing Bruno and Claudia from the chamber. Their assistance in this matter could have been... _beneficial._ "

 _"They're still alive,_ so..."

I turned to face my Ss'sik'chtokiwij kin. "Guys..."

I winced at the lifeless tonality of my voice. "Guys, this is going to sound weird, but I just swapped bodies with Big Bird. You want to help me rescue a guy real quick?"

The aliens stared at me.

"I'll help you get the family once we've found him. Promise."

When I still got stares, I pointed to my nose. "I'm pretty sure I can recite a chemical formula for all the molecules I inhale, but _using any of that information to track down a friend_ , that's just not something this _thing_ knows how to do."

Mary Jorden asked, "Is this friend the long haired brown human I tried to eat?"

Even with Mary's help, the task of finding Gary Christie wasn't exactly easy. After the obelisks had been destroyed in Wren's other little charnel house, we couldn't just backtrack through the Auriga and find a way back to the carrion crawler's lair.

I watched as she sniffed around the chamber. "He wasn't here. Perhaps if we follow the scent of that `Centipede'..."

I let her lead us down the tunnel.

"How's your leg?" I asked as I watched her limping. "I really didn't mean to cut it open like that, it was an accident..."

She growled a little. _"I'll manage."_

"I'm really sorry."

"It's okay. You've got a thing in your brain. I should consider myself fortunate."

We continued on.

"Wait," Lacy protested. "What about me? _I have daughters back on earth_! You can't just... _hang out here_ forever!"

I felt sorry for her, but not that sorry. "Look. I don't know what your deal is, but Claudia was right. If you are who you think you are, they're not going to accept you. They'll get scared, maybe try to attack you. I know this from experience.

I had a _friend._ She kinda adopted me when I was human. When I became _this thing_ , all of that changed."

Lacy sighed impatiently. "That's you! Why don't you take us back to earth and _let me_ decide what's best?"

In my current electronic brain, I wanted her to think logically, to persuade her to think this through by deductive, _or inductive,_ reasoning. I had to force an override, with the thought that the female had no intention of listening to reason. "No."

I then had to force myself not to give an explanation for why I said no.

"Oh yeah? Then how about I rip your head off your shoulders and shove it up your shiny plastic ass?"

I rolled my eyes, addressing the ceiling. "Big Bird, can you hear me?"

Fortunately, the alien `ship' possessed an intercom system. "Yes, Becky."

"Could you take care of this? You know, drop her somewhere else on the ship?"

"You don't want that," she said in my voice. "Trust me."

"Why."

"Dunno. I'm just lonely, and she's just like me. Actually, _you._ ""

 _"You're getting emotional?_ " I cried.

"It's your brain. Admit it. _You need this._ "

"Fine. Can you at least teleport some duct tape over here? Something to restrain her?"

"Look around you. _I believe you have it covered._ "

"He means us," said Opvossu-Jesus.

Her missing arm lessened my confidence somewhat, but I decided Big Bird was right. I had the strength of numbers.

"Now wait a damn minute!" Lacy shouted, but my Ss'sik'chtokiwij companions surrounded her, protecting me.

"C'mon! _We can work out a deal!_ If you send us back, I'll take care of your... _potty needs_ , and feeding..."

"Nice try," I said. "But I have other Ss'sik'chtokiwij who can help me with that, ones that won't abandon me when they find their family. And... _myself._ "

"Hey, _I offered!_ "

Despite all the restructuring in my mind, the alien labyrinth remained as convoluted and confusing as before. I don't know if this were out of a secret fear I had of none of this being real, or due to the fact everything was frozen, but it remained a mystery. I had some general ideas of the layout based on information the chair had stuck in my brain, but I was still trying to piece all the specifics, to make a real map.

The monster appeared to be subject to frequent fits of boredom and restlessness. We found its trails all over the place. It took extra time to narrow its paths down to the heaviest, the newest, the closest to its nest.

After wandering semi-aimlessly for a few minutes, Big Bird came to our aid, making glowing symbols appear on the wall to guide us ahead in the appropriate direction.

We soon found ourselves in the chamber I'd seen between the other two obelisks, the shattered gilded posts indicating we no longer had access to that particular area of the Auriga from this side anymore.

Within minutes, we located the `Centipede's' hoard of human beings, the majority of them dead or half consumed.

I also noticed...several _cocooned animals_ , including a large sow, though I had no clue how they got there.

Without warning, the pig awoke, squealing at us and squirming against its bonds.

I got tired of it making noise, so I cut it loose, letting it run freely...to who knows where.

A second later, I heard a muffled yell.


	32. Chapter 37: Luke

We rapidly moved the cocooned bodies, which, by and large, had been either partially consumed, skewered by monster claws, or suffocated.

Albino people. Blue people. Alien people with fur pelts. People from the Auriga.

Only one cocoon actually wiggled, and as we moved it, a knife came sawing through its slimy interior, slicing upward.

With Mary's help (I wasn't nearly as powerful in a synthetic body), we hurriedly pulled it open, making several tears in the material. A white ooze came pouring out, something that looked like Elmer's glue, and just as sticky.

The pig had some of that glop stuck to it, but not nearly as much. I could see how a puny knife wouldn't be enough to free the man.

I pulled out a slime covered human being barely recognizable as the man who had disappeared from the Auriga an hour or so before.

His hair seemed to be falling apart, his clothing taking on a rotted away appearance. It was all that goop.

He staggered to the middle of the chamber, throwing up on the floor.

"Oh my God!" he coughed, straightened, then backed away in horror at what surrounded him. "What the fuck?"

I put a hand on his shoulder. "We came to rescue you. Are you okay?"

 _"Rescue?_ " he laughed. _"With those things?"_

"Hey, it's not that big thing with the tentacles. You should give us some props."

In reply, he only winced. "This shit is burning me all over. Can you get me to a shower or something?... _God, I can't believe I'm going along with this!"_

"I'll see what I can do."

I led him back through the tunnels.

Christie threw aside his sodden tank top. "Hey, what happened to the others? Vriess and Johner and all of them? Did they get to the Betty all right? Or did _your friends_ kill them all?"

"They were okay the last time I saw them."

He frowned. "I don't remember seeing you before. You one of those staff droids?"

"... _Kinda._ It's...complicated. Call me Becky."

"You sure talk funny for a droid. You one of those haywire Type 3 models?"

 _"Something like that._ "

I addressed the ceiling. "Big Bird, what's the status of the Betty?"

"The Betty currently occupies an area of space one thousand meters from Auriga's port side."

"Wait," I stammered. "What? How are they _there?_ "

"You created a secondary portal when you moved the Auriga. Do you not remember?"

I frowned. "... _No._ Are you telling me that, after all this time, they couldn't figure out how to get their ship out of this place and get back to earth?"

Big Bird took a moment to respond. " _They did_ , but then curiosity got the better of them, and they flew their craft within a thousand meters of the Auriga as it was entering the first portal."

"They left without me?" Christie cried. "The bastards left without me?"

"They thought you were dead," I said. "Everyone was dying. _Even I_ thought you were gone. I...told them to go on. So they wouldn't die too."

The man looked pissed. _"Gee! Thanks a lot!_ "

 _"I came back for you._ That counts for something, doesn't it?"

He didn't answer.

I hurried him ahead, down to the section of the tunnel where the obelisks stood.

With the android's brain, I had no problem finding an appropriate location on the Auriga. The Ss'sik'chtokiwij were annoyed at me, but I explained that humans were sensitive.

When Christie came out, he had veiny purple patches all over his skin, his hair had turned white, and his eyes had no coloration.

He had found new clothing. It was probably just as well, because he had toxic slime all over his other ones. For the top he'd found some fat guy's baggy work shirt, and the bottom, although denim, happened to have rhinestone butterflies on it and stopped short at the knees.

"Nice threads," I said.

"Shut up." He sounded like he were about to cry. "It's all I could find in there. Oh God."

"We waste time," Ssunamrozedrah growled.

I marched ahead, just to humor her. "What's the rush? The ship's out of danger. We'll get there soon enough."

"That's not what worries me. The _evil forces_ in this place..."

I put my hands on my hips, just to convey an emotion through the lifeless machine. "I admit there's...something not right about this place, but where are we going to go?"

Mary Jorden frowned at me. "Machine, are you able to tell us the locations of our kin?"

My electronic brain had enough room for the emotion of annoyance. "I'm not a machine...Okay, maybe technically I'm using a machine body, but inside I'm really..." Mentioning my humanity would have defeated the purpose of what I was trying to say. _"One of you."_

She huffed impatiently. "I understand. _Can you locate anyone?_ "

I had to give it some thought, and scan the whole floor roster to see what occupied what. I deactivated everything in my machine body to process the question.

The problem wasn't a lack of information, it was too much. I knew, for example, how many light sockets were in a nearby room, where the ventilation ducts lay, what staff member had requested what cleaning or maintenance detail on what day. If so desired, I could even plug a cable into my head and get information on what appliance was using up electricity on that level.

Like an internet search, I put in a bracket or something to omit human beings from the results, but also like an internet search, I either brought up nothing or several ambiguously related items, like when you ask for a pool hall and it shows you a place that sells diving boards.

 _"I asked you a question,"_ my companion insisted.

I feigned rubbing an aching head. "And I'm working on the answer. Hold on. There's a lot of crap in here. It's taking me awhile to figure out which end is up."

I had to make some _deductive leaps_ to get a handle on the whole mess. "My body has been in all but two of the labs on this level, and hasn't seen anything... _alien._ "

Several recorded images popped up in my mind. It seemed this android had met all of Ernie's relatives before. I had a mental picture of the `Sil' creature's babies, human kids, and a group of xenomorphs onboard a spaceship docked at the Auriga...but then something unknown happened, and there was a six hour gap in the record. Six hours in which all of those creatures got... _put somewhere._

"What is in the other labs?"

I shrugged. "Prototypes for biological weapons, variants of smallpox, airborne AIDS, pneumonia grenades, a highly transmittable version of Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis..."

A lot of that went right over my companions' heads, so I added, "Diseases."

"In other words, biological weapons that are not alive."

"Oh no, _they're alive_. You see, technically many microscopic organisms are classified as small animals..."

"You talk like a machine," Mary groaned.

"Sorry."

Unsurprisingly, the two labs I hadn't entered lay next door to the place where we'd fought the Carrion Crawler. We didn't have the security tools necessary to open them up, so I pretty much got the team help me dismantle the door piece by piece until we got in.

The first lab contained something that really deserved to be locked up, a human shaped thing under an oxygen tent that sprouted a moss-like substance as thick as sod. Other tents held bodies that looked calcified...or mummified by toxins.

In one oxygen tent, I saw a skeletal shape in a labcoat crumpled over a bed, the toxin having somehow escaped the patient. The man's head looked like a white fungal Chia Pet. Although the android body gave me some scientific detachment, I still had enough `me' inside to not wish to linger. "Let's...uh, move along."

I glanced back. "Wait. Where's Lacy?"

"We had a falling out," said Ssunamrozedrah. "She left. I seriously doubt she has access to anything that will aid her or the humans in their cause."

I frowned. "I hope you're right."

We dismantled another door near the other end of the hallway. It had an alarm, but I knew something about shutting it off.

Now that we kind of knew what we were doing, I had acquired a tool box from one of the maintenance compartments. It took us no time at all to get past the other security door's safeguards.

The lab on this side looked like a little hotel room, but sealed off from the outside with glass and steel, like a cage in a zoo. It had a library of books, an actual sink and flush toilet.

On the bed sat a strange looking little boy, half human, half insect. Like a pillbug, he had a shell growing out of his back, and a chitinous hood covered his bald head. His armored chest featured two smaller arms to compliment his normal human ones. No visible genitalia. His legs had spiky `boots', his arms partly covered in natural `gloves.'

The boy had been studying something on his laptop, but our noises made him sit up and gawk at us.

"Despite the fact he didn't quite match the recordings in the database, I still blurted, "Luke?"

The kid smirked a little, but he seemed kinda sad. _"At least you remember my name!"_

Big Bird's brain had a few recordings of her attempted visits to the place. "I...wanted to visit you, but I couldn't. Father wouldn't let me."

 _"I saw you walking past my room several times."_

"I know, but I'm a robot. You want to come with us, or do you want to stay in there and harbor grudges against me?"

Luke eagerly jumped out of the bed, rushing to the door. "Where's mom?"

I had to dig through files for that one.

Sil, his real mother, was dead. His secondary...disappeared in space somewhere. That left him with the woman making love to Ernie on the lower floor. "Uh...which one?"

"Ellen Ripley," she said.

I froze, but it wasn't to process anything this time.

A horrible realization just struck me, and I found myself hyperventilating.

Ripley is dead, I thought. Oh God, she's dead, and they cloned her.

Not once, but several times.

Okay, so I knew that, rationally, before, when she had discovered the room with all the... _things_ in it, the one she toasted with a blowtorch, but no, it really didn't sink in. Not until that very moment.

I had seen her die.

I had seen her sink into molten lead.

Someone had cloned her.

That was why she treated me like a stranger!

An impostor!

My only connection to the life I once knew, and it was all a lie!

Up until this point, I had been in denial, my brain telling me comforting fictions to cover up the unpleasant facts of the situation, but now I could no longer turn away and pretend that things were still the same. My mind couldn't handle the truth.

I whimpered, I cried, I hyperventilated so much that I blacked out.

I know it shouldn't have worked. I was a robot. I didn't need to breathe.

However, it turns out my Ss'sik'chtokiwij body did.

I awoke in the chair again, staring at the control chamber in a blind panic. "Big Bird!" I cried. "Big Bird!"

"You are panicking!" she shouted in my mind. "Your heart can't handle the stress! Desist at once!"

But I ignored her, continuing to breathe sharply, gasping for air. Flecked stars passed through my field of vision. I struggled against the brace that held my neck.

"Stop this!" Big Bird ordered. "You will die!"

I screamed.

"Calm yourself!" Big Bird repeated. "Calm!"

I panted, stared wildly about the chamber.

It seemed my `ghost' hadn't jumped into a new `machine' after all. I was still in the chair.

Big Bird hadn't really `uploaded my consciousness' anywhere. She'd just done a more complicated version of that... _synthetic eyeball_ thing that doctors can do these days. You're just wiring something like a TV into your brain. Of course, mine was like a virtual reality simulation, _in my head_.

Since Big Bird was roaming my gray (or green?) matter, I could see her in the throne room.

Just me and her in there. She was growling. "Calm yourself, Becky! You do not want to die!"

"I..." I sobbed. "It was okay when there was just one of them. I could pretend like she'd just come back to life, but, but now that I know there are... _multiples_ of her..."

I couldn't stop crying. _"I saw the pictures..."_

"Would you like me to close off my memory banks so that this information does not disturb you?"

I sniffed. " _No. I have a responsibility._ "

"Your companions currently think you have decided to _shirk_ this responsibility. If you are feeling better, you may want to return to the `bath tub' to `set the record straight.'...Are you feeling well enough for the task?"

I sighed, took some more calming breaths. "Y-yeah. I...I'm good."

"Don't stress your heart."

"I'll try." I let out a slow exhalation. "Big Bird, if I'm not really in your body, why do you need to take over my bodily functions?"

"I needed to free up your mind's processing power... _and take over my bodily functions._ "

"I didn't know you had those."

"They are different needs, but you will have to take care of them. Fortunately, they are quite simple and self explanatory in nature, such as charging my energy core."

I sighed. "I hope you're right."

I got back in the bathtub, allowed Big Bird to take over my body as I entered hers.

When I returned to my surrogate body, I found the aliens already dismantling the door to Luke's cell. Alarms were blaring.

In my absence, my robotic body had collapsed on the floor like a marionette with its strings cut. I pushed myself back up into a standing position. "Wait! You're only making things worse! Let me fix that!"

"How kind of you to join us," Ssunamrozedrah snarled.

"Sorry," I said. "I had...a _panic attack_. It won't happen again."

I helped deactivate the alarm, bypassed the lock.

"Have you found my brother yet?" Luke asked when he stepped out to freedom.

"Um, no. Not...yet. We're-"

All of a sudden, I found myself unable to speak.

A stranger had passed into the room undetected, and now stood still and quiet in the corner of the room.

It was an old man, clad in a buttonless suit top and slacks like Doctor No from James Bond, or a guy from the cover of an Arthur C. Clarke Novel. I guess it would have been comical if I hadn't seen lab guys wearing similar things, and his face hadn't looked like death itself.

I pointed to him. "Guys. Did you see that?"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij turned and looked.

"There's nothing there," said Ssunamrozedrah.

"You don't see a..."

I tried to finish the sentence, but something had taken over my mouth, so no words came out.

Big Bird's database told me exactly what I was up against.

I'd just been attacked by Father.


	33. Chapter 38: Lemon Cake

The old man didn't speak, he just looked at me, and my head turned, against my will, so that I looked directly into those dead soulless eyes.

My eyeballs locked on his ice gray pupils. I couldn't even look away.

An image of a knife flashed into my mind. I visualized stabbing Mary Jorden, over and over again.

Instead of protesting that she was family, or that I morally objected to it, my only thought was how the acid blood would melt the knife and parts of my robotic hand, maybe splash up into my face, and Mary might possibly want to kill me.

A second image flashed into my mind: A powerful shotgun, cleverly hidden inside a bulkhead in a nearby room. I knew the room number, and where the now deceased owner kept his bullets.

I blinked, and the man disappeared like he was never there. Maybe he wasn't.

Additional thoughts trickled into my brain, unbidden, thoughts that seemed like something that had been planted there by an outside agency... _but were they really?_

The first invasive thought was, how well do I really know my companions? Did they really deserve to be called family?

Unlike humans, they seemed to have no real individual personalities. With the exception of Lacy, and maybe Ssunamrozedrah, they just seemed like a bunch of mindless ants from a big hive. I cast demons out of them, but otherwise had no attachment to them. They all looked the same, acted the same, seemed the same to me.

We weren't supposed to have spiders and flies on LV 426, but as the guy in _Jurassic Park_ said, "Life finds a way," so I would often cry out in disgust and crush them with a shoe or a rolled up magazine or whatever I had lying around. Otherwise, you know they might land on your nostrils, crawl up inside your mouth, or give you a pus filled swollen bruise.

I remembered facing the alien queen, with all those eggs, and that other time when that face hugging thing came after me in the lab.

Another vision flashed before my eyes, a tiny wolf spider that looked like the queen, carrying around hundreds of face huggers on her abdomen, and me spraying them with insecticide. There was a certain satisfaction in making all of that go away.

"Well!" Ssunamrozedrah barked at me. "Are you going to stand like that all day, or are you joining us?"

I suddenly noticed I could move. "Do me a favor. The next time I do that, and you want me to go somewhere, just pick me up. I'm..." I was afraid to even try mentioning Father. "This body is malfunctioning."

"Tell me something I don't know."

I stared at her, thinking how foolish it would be to actually attempt to murder her.

I resolved to look for reasons not to.

The problem was, what really set them apart? They all had the same type of birth. Evil men, planting larva in randomly selected victims. Still, I had just identified with them as family, and I didn't want to be alone. I had to establish _some_ kind of rapport, figure out ways to...not want to kill them in cold blood.

I put my hand on another alien's shoulder plate, staring carefully at her face.

I mean, all Border Collies _only seem_ to look the same. The same is probably true for bugs, especially giant alien ones. I mean, a mother tells the difference somehow...

...Mother...

"Mary..." I noticed that she _did_ actually have unique features, a pattern of five...markings, all shaped like half an Apple symbol...actually _four_ and a _heart symbol_. "I...saw you being born. I...I was friends with your mother. Um...I guess you'll have a lot to talk with her about, right? I mean, when you all get back together?"

She nodded. "I am no longer a larva. I have spent a long time alone. There has been a vast gap in my life."

"It hasn't been _that_ long..." I said. "I mean, those people only brought your... _host bodies_ in a few days ago..."

Mary grabbed me so forcefully that I thought she intended to rip me apart. "Did mother mature this quickly?"

I scowled. "I...don't know."

"What about... _your body_? _The one in the chair? Did that_ develop this quickly? _"_

"Uh," I stammered. "No."

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij let out a piteous wail. " _It's those humans! They've stolen my life from me!_ "

She pulled me in close, like she were going to crush me, but she only wrapped her arms around me and made soft coughing sounds. "I'm going to die just as quickly, aren't I?"

"I...hope not." I furrowed my brow. "You think this has anything to do with your genetic alteration? You know, like how you've got gills?"

Mary sniffled. "I do not know. But during my imprisonment, I witnessed some strange things. I saw...plants developing and dying within the space of an hour, the quick spread of mildew, rust growing, strangely fast beard growth..."

She pressed her face to my face. _"Newt! I think there's something wrong with time!_ "

I frowned at her. "You think...time is broken? Like in a Doctor Who episode or something?"

Mary had no eyes, but her expression looked blanker than usual. "What's that?"

"Never mind," I groaned. "It's not helpful."

I noted, much to my annoyance, that my positronic brain had access to several episodes in their entirety, and simply mentioning the show caused one to start playing. I hit my head like you'd do when you have water in your ear, told the brain to shut up when it started playing _Columbo goes to the Guillotine_.

"You seem to be having...difficulty," Mary muttered. "Perhaps you were better off in the chair."

"I hope not."

"Machine," said Ssunamrozedrah. "You try my patience. You found... _that creature_ , but you have yet to locate our missing family members."

I stared at her spotty face, trying to remember why she looked more familiar than most. It seemed I'd known her... _from before_... _as a human_.

Big Bird's brain showed me, with video, the connection Ssunamrozedrah had with Ernie, how she was the daughter of Ernie's sister of them together during incidents on earth, but there was something else...something I couldn't put a finger on. A... _fearful memory_. "I know you're in a hurry. I mean, I guess they could be in trouble or starving, but...chill out, okay? _We're going!_ "

I led the aliens back down the corridor, marching past the room with the shotgun.

Luke grabbed my hand, like I were his parent or something. I...didn't brush him away. I don't know, it was kinda nice, to think he felt that comfortable around me. I guess being a familiar android helped.

Mary and Ruth muttered to one another for a few moments, then, as I crossed into another hallway, the latter asked me to tell her something about her mother. "Since you knew her for so long, you must have many fond memories."

I grimaced. "I...wouldn't exactly call them fond."

"Regardless, I am desperate to hear some."

I stopped walking, examining her face, noting how the melted gold obscured a skin pattern that almost looked like a Christian Chi Rho sign. "Well...the thing that sticks out in my mind the most is how your mother mentally raped me."

Ruth tensed up. I thought I even detected anger.

I wasn't about to apologize. "I was having convulsions. As I lay on the floor, she opened her mouth and stuck those horrible wormy things up my nose and into my brain. She entered my dreams. It was like I'd been raped."

"What are convulsions?"

I explained, my robotic mind even providing the dictionary definition.

"Perhaps she was trying to help you."

I forced a sigh, for dramatic effect. " _Maybe,_ but she didn't ask my permission."

"You don't need permission to save someone's life. Why were you having convulsions?"

I paused and thought a moment. "I...I don't know. I...seemed to start having the problem right after I went with Ernie and her friend Sarah to the (lemon cake)."

I didn't mean to say `lemon cake,' but the word came out instead of what...I was supposed to remember.

"Lemon cake gave you convulsions?"

I shook my head, blurted no ten times like a skipping CD.

Unable to talk about it directly, I went around the bed. "I and Sarah, Sarah and I, we found a lab. It said (lemon cake) on the door. We opened it up and found all these (lemon cake) in (lemon cake). I saw more strapped to tables, and a door leading to (lemon cake), and there was another lab. In there they were testing (lemon cake). The (lemon cake) took something out of my brain, so that any time I thought of (lemon cake) I'd have convulsions."

 _"Was lemon cake involved?"_ Ruth asked with a purring chuckle.

"Not funny," I said, bonking my temple with one hand.

"I think Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik _was_ trying to help you."

"I don't know..."

"What happened in the dream? When she joined minds with you?"

"I was dreaming about doctors putting mom's brain into a cat. When I saw Ernie, I ran away from her, only to find her playing with human bones outside my home."

"Ss'sik'chtokiwij generally like to play with bones."

"I...don't know about that. The next thing I dreamed about was... _a big scary hole, in reality._ "

"Maybe that's where this `lemon cake' was."

"It's not lemon cake!" I shouted. "It's (lemon cake)!" I struck myself again.

"Was it a missing memory?"

I nodded my head vigorously. "Yes. That's exactly what it was."

After thinking about it for a minute, more memories came to the surface. "Ernie...told me about the hole. She said...I need to fill it with something. Put a wall around it with bricks, or think of it as a big chocolate cake with a stolen slice, and you're filling the gap with..."

I rubbed my forehead, for dramatic purposes. Robots don't get headaches. "She _was_ helping me...Only now I feel worse because I know something's gone, and I can't get it back."

 _"Can't, or won't?"_ Ruth asked.

"I...I don't know."

We approached another restricted lab.

The moment we got the door opened and looked inside, I caught sight of something so horrible that my conscious mind fled to the chair, and I was screaming.

It wasn't just the visual.

 _It was the fact I'd seen it before._

 _I only wished_ it was lemon cake.


	34. Chapter 39: Ssorzechola

I'd seen a large white orb in a glass tank. Being a composite, and not a solid, the object rippled all over, looking like a giant white hairball with moving hair.

I knew it wasn't hair.

I knew if I got really close to it, it would look like a dead dog's heart after the heartworms had a party around its aorta.

The moment the door came open, the hairs whipped against the glass. They wanted a body to infest.

And then there was _the symbol_.

The supply crates, the machines, they all had a symbol of a snake head emerging from a flower, the word `DAMBALLAH' stenciled beneath, the same symbol I had hidden inside my stuffed dog.

I had a flash of memory. A bunch of little girls floating in tanks of fluid. Before I could grasp further details, the memory faded.

I felt my chest and head hurting. I'd strained myself again. I took deep breaths, trying to calm down.

"You can't keep doing this," Big Bird said. "Shall I take over until you feel better?"

"No," I groaned. "Let me face...my fear. I...have to."

"I must warn you, if you have another cardiac event of this kind, I will resume control of my body on a semi permanent basis. I cannot appease you emotionally at the expense of your life."

" _My brain is stuck to a chair_ , Big Bird. I don't have a life anymore."

The artificial intelligence paused a moment, contemplating my words.

"Becky, I think I understand the emotion of caring."

To be respectful, I tried to keep skepticism out of my voice. _"Oh?"_

"Becky, I don't want you to die. Please be careful."

I sighed. "Okay, Big Bird."

I tried to go into the bathtub thing, but I couldn't find it in my mental submarine. "Where is it, Big Bird? Where's the tub?"

"The tub is a construct. You don't need it. Just go through the same mental subroutines."

"What?"

"Just remember the experience think your way into my body."

She was right. I just visualized myself going into that bathtub thing without the bathtub being present, focusing on the sensation of being swallowed up by... _electronics_ , I guess.

When I returned to my android surrogate body, a crack had developed in the glass tank ahead of me.

Only one crack was needed for those things to get out.

I'd seen an orb just like it on LV 426. They'd kept it in a glass case just like that.

Big Bird's neural matrix matched the image to an asteroid extracted from a planetary belt a few light years away.

Unfortunately, the scientists made the mistake of extracting a large Ss'sik'chtokiwij egg from a wrecked spacecraft and storing it in the same general location.

I could view the archival footage of the incident, a scientist getting the thing wrapped around his face, the same man screaming as the larva burst from his chest, crashing backwards into the glass tank with all the wormy things inside.

He pushed the incinerator a little too late.

"...Machine, if you don't shut off the fire safety equipment right now, I will separate your head from your shoulders!"

Ssunamrozedrah was right in my face.

She looked angry.

No...scared, not that I blamed her.

Still, I didn't like people just coming up to me with threatening language right off the bat. "Whoa. _You could have at least said please!_ "

 _"I've been asking you to help for the last five minutes. I don't have time for politeness!_ "

I looked down and saw a flamethrower clutched in her claws. "You're going to use that?"

She gave me this expression that she'd use it on me if I didn't move my butt.

"Look. There's a built in incinerator."

 _"Then use the damn thing! Now!"_

I rushed to a control panel, doing my best impression of Data from _Star Trek_. I had access to the information about the incinerator, but my speed _wasn't quite_ that fast. I did okay, though.

A blast furnace came on, roasting the squirming mound of worms like a bunch of French onions. It made horrible sounds as it burned, like a thousand tiny aliens shrieking, mingled with human-like noises that made you think of tormented leprechaun souls burning in hell.

Ssunamrozedrah shouldered her weapon, aiming at the tank. "Deactivate the fire sprinklers."

"Why? I think we got it covered."

"If you truly understood what these things are, you wouldn't be so confident."

I shut off the sprinklers.

I watched as she blasted the glass tank, turning it into a big shattering fireball blowing into the rear of the laboratory. She torched every glass fragment she could find, obliterated a couple propane canisters for good measure.

She torched everything in the room, to the point where the flamethrower ran out of fuel and the conflagration threatened to spread into the rest of the ship.

When we at last left the area, Ssunamrozedrah said, "There. _Now_ we _`have it covered.'_ "

Obviously, you can't just set fire to a room with the safeties off and not blow up a space station. I had it figured out enough to set up a timer to shut off the air going in, to allow the fire to die off on its own, after first killing everything in the room.

I remembered those worms.

They'd infested a guy named Adam Rapchuck.

Ernie melted off his face, tore chunks off his body, and the worms regrew everything, making it look like no damage had been done at all.

"Those things," Ssunamrozedrah growled. " _Those worms!_ They made my great aunt Ssorzechola into something monstrous!"

I chuckled at the absurdity of a literal monster saying that their family member had become... _well, you know_.

"Are you ill?" she paused. "Wait. That is the noise one makes when amused! This isn't funny! _Do you understand what you're dealing with!_ "

I swallowed, only for dramatic purposes. "I'm sorry. It's what humans call `gallows humor.' ` _Sarcola'..._ I _..._ I think I've heard that name before."

 _"It's Ssorzechola._ "

After Ernie connected to my mind, I got scared and ran away from her. I climbed inside the ventilation system, darted through a machine shop, snuck upstairs into someone's living quarters.

When I heard voices outside the door, I hid under the bed, waiting for... _whoever it was_ to go away. Although I didn't relish having Ernie catch up to me, I didn't want to be caught trespassing either.

An Indian guy came into the room. Kind of a weirdo. I'd seen him around the base a lot, always wore a suit, always carried around a bible.

The guy got on the computer, talking to someone on video chat. "Jim, you coming in?"

"I don't know, Kumar," a voice on the computer replied. "It seems like every time it gets dark, another family dies. We've already lost the Viebrocks and the Massoods. I'm not sure I _should_ come back. Is it true what they say about the giant bugs?"

"Satan is roaming like a roaring lion, seeking something to devour. But we are Christ's elect. You shouldn't be afraid. ` _If God is for us, who in heaven or on earth can be against us?'_ '

"So you're saying come back to base anyway."

"No no!" Ernie cried, making frantic gestures inside the ventilation register. "Stay there!"

Kumar turned his head for a moment, like he heard her, but then shrugged it off, continuing to talk. "If you're truly in the Spirit, you will _have faith, and trust in God to protect you._ "

"You're right. I'm sorry. Are we...meeting in the same room?"

"Yes, Jim. Upstairs at Noah and Sunny's place."

"What's that under your bed?"

Kumar turned his chair around. "Do you see something...?"

I tried to run out the door, but he grabbed me by the wrist, nearly twisting it out of its socket when I tried to get free. "Hey! Who are you?"

Kumar grabbed me by the shoulders. "What are you doing in my room? How did you get in here?"

"Ask her who her parents are," said the voice on the computer.

I sighed and stopped struggling. "Can I please go?"

"Not just yet," Kumar said in a crisp tone. "Where are your parents?"

"They're gone." I didn't have time for these games.

"What do you mean _`gone'_?"

 _"The monsters took them away._ Can I go now?"

"I don't think so. Before we do anything, we need to find your parents. And since you're a flight risk, I'm taking you to stay with one of my friends."

"No!" I struggled, but it was no use.

Some people at Hadley's Hope joined trailers together to make a shared living space. This one was set up like a church. A house church. Religious pictures, a pulpit, folding chairs, piles of hymnals and bibles...

I met the man's wife and her baby, the guy took a picture of me, then tried to introduce me to... _Sunny_.

Crazy Korean chick. Always preaching bible stuff at people. While I know some evangelism is good, she didn't do enough relationship building, she mostly just spouted bible verses at them. Even my pastor said she didn't have a life. She sucked the air out of the room.

"No thank you," I told the Indian. "I'm leaving."

The man sighed. "What's your name?"

"Newt," I said.

Kumar rolled his eyes. "Look. _Newt._ There are bad things attacking people in this base. You need to stay with an adult so they can protect you. All I'm asking is for you to stay with Sunny for a couple hours while I try to find your parents. If they're alive, I'll take you back to them."

"My parents are _dead_ ," I growled.

Kumar frowned. "No offense, but I'd like to see that for myself. Too many young girls run away from their parents and claim to be orphans. I'm really hoping you're wrong, because if we can't find your parents or other living relations, we might have to find you a new family."

"I don't want a new family! I'm fine on my own!"

The man shook his head sadly. "You're not fine. The bible says to teach a child in the way they should go, so that they will not depart from it."

I just glared at him, quoting the same crap he'd used to make that guy on the computer risk his life to come over there. "The bible also says that, if you're truly in the Spirit, you will have faith, and trust in God to protect you _._ "

Kumar sighed through his nostrils. "That's...true, but God also tells us to love our neighbors, _and their children_...C'mon. Let's go see Sunny. Maybe she can get you some cookies or show you some games."

My stomach rumbled. _"What kind of cookies?"_

And so I fell into his trap.

Sunny was a small, tan old lady with glasses and curly gray-black hair. She had a fat little toddler with her that she swung around by his arms like a chimp as she waddled up to me. The kid's name was Abraham.

When she saw me, she laughed, staring wide eyed. "Oh! Hello! How are you?" She said these words like someone had written them on a cue card, and was just stumbling through them.

"I'm fine," I muttered.

"Sorry? _I see you before, but I do not remember your name?_ "

"Newt."

Sunny furrowed her brow. "I'm sorry?

"Newt. N.E.W.T."

The woman looked genuinely puzzled. "I...do not think that is your name."

 _"Well then you don't think much, because it is."_

"I caught her hiding in my bedroom," Kumar said. "Would you mind watching her for a few minutes while I try to find her parents?"

Sunny chuckled. "Okay! I will do it!" She paused. "Good luck."

Kumar put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. Sunny's going to take good care of you." He left her in the company of this other stranger.

I got led to a padded bench, conveniently close to a bench.

Her kid pointed at me, crying something I couldn't understand, probably in Korean, though with a child that age it could be nonsense.

"Yes, yes," Sunny said. "That is _Newt!"_

And she spent a moment coaching Abraham how to pronounce the name, explaining what newts were.

"Please. Have a seat," Sunny said. "Would you like snack? Or juice?"

"Um..."

"I have _pizza_. Would you like some?"

"Yes please," I stammered.

At the time, Timmy was still alive, but i didn't want him getting trapped like me, so I didn't rat him out...even if he _could have_ used a meal.

Okay, so maybe I was being a little selfish too. I hadn't eaten since last night. But I figured if he found me, I could always slip him something later on...or maybe get him to help me to escape and steal food from Sunny's cabinets on the way out.

As she left me to make preparations in the kitchen, I began to have second thoughts. Timmy _really did_ need me, and if I kept hanging around, I'd end up adopted by a bunch of boring strangers. I worked on opening a ventilation register.

I nearly had it all the way off when I found Ernie staring back at me from behind the panel. Turns out she'd been stalking me the whole time. Her and her little friend, (lemon cake).

"Hi," Ernie said with a wave.

"Move away from the hole," I snarled. "I'm getting out of here."

"I can't let you do that. _You're safe here._ There's safety in numbers. These people seem nice."

 _"They seem like assholes,"_ I said. "I don't like them."

Ernie shook her head. "You need someone to take care of you, and they want to help."

"I don't need help."

(Lemon cake, lemon cake)

Sunny came back with a crappy homemade pizza she'd made with ketchup and processed American cheese. She'd even burned the crust. To add insult to injury, she also gave me this terrible tasting organic juice to wash it down with.

Sunny marched to a door at the opposite end of the room. "Noah! Someone is here!"

I slipped the pizza into Ernie's vent when the woman wasn't looking.

The door slid open. A brown beady eyed man with slicked down hair and dress clothing sat a desk, reading the bible to a young man in a jumpsuit.

"Noah!" Sunny called again.

The man at the desk set his papers down. "Yes, Sunny?"

"Noah, we have guest."

Noah stood up. "Oh!"

When he saw me, he chuckled. "Wow. Who is this?"

"She...call herself ` _Newt_.'"

The man chuckled some more. It seemed he found everything a little amusing. " _Newt?_ "

"Yes. Like _eye of newt_." She pantomimed stirring a pot.

"Oh! Ha ha. You know, there was once _Senator_ with name `Newt' as well. Perhaps she is named after him?"

"I...do not think that is her name. I see her before, but I do not think so. I think this is _nickname._ "

"Oh," he said with a tone of concern. " _I see._ "

"Kumar is _searching for parents_. Maybe someone will know."

"When you find out, let me know. I would like to meet them." He gestured to his companion. "Please excuse me?"

"What chapter are you reading now?" Sunny asked.

"Oh..." Noah said in a tone that almost sounded like bragging. "Luke the twenty first chapter."

"Wow," Sunny said. "That's good!"

I kept shrinking in my seat, eying the vent, but the alien wasn't moving.

A few moments after Noah stepped back into his room, Abraham muttered something to his mother, and she brought out a potty chair, encouraging him to pee right in front of everybody. Blah.

The woman then put on a lame religious cartoon for me to watch, one of those things with low production values and no character development. I kept checking the vent, but the alien didn't budge an inch. One time I thought she was gone, but then she appeared the moment I moved the register.

And then Kumar returned, looking sad.

"Oh!" Sunny cried, marching up to him. "What did you find out?"

The Indian handed her a clear plastic trophy. "She was right. She's an orphan. Her real name is Rebecca Jorden. Her mother and father were wildcatters, and they got attacked by something. Administration is still reviewing her case."

Gee, thanks for reminding me, Kumar.

"They're going to try to find the next of kin, and either move her in with them or ship her to earth," the man said. "In the meantime, they say she can stay with us, as long as they have someone to contact in the event of finding her family. You have a very good civilian record."

 _"So does she!"_ Sunny cried, waving the trophy. "You win Young Citizenship Award?"

I didn't want to talk to her. I really didn't. "Maybe."

Sweetie frowned. "She...does not look happy."

"Would you blame her? She's been living all by herself for weeks." Kumar's expression now reflected puzzlement. "You know what's odd? Her teachers say she has been regularly attending classes this whole time. They didn't even know there was a problem until I asked about it.

"They said some of her stories about staying with her uncle seemed suspicious, but nobody bothered to check if she actually had an uncle here.

"Her attendance wasn't that good before, especially around the time of the explosion, _and_ when her father went into medlab, but after that, _perfect attendance._ "

"Oh! I think she...avoid adoption." Sweetie pantomimed being Rebecca. "Hello! _Nothing is wrong!_ " she said with a fake grin and a wave. "You do not need adopt-me! I am fine! See? _I go to school!_ "

Kumar nodded, looking grave. "You're probably right."

They'd found me out.

For a week now, me and Timmy had been going to classes by day, stealing and scavenging by night. We brought our lunches, packed with stuff from the J. Catt place, or paid for cafeteria food with the small amounts of money we found in his dresser drawers and cabinets. Sometimes we bartered his property for meals. I think the guy was dead. I never saw him once.

And now Sunny knew everything, and had probably already told my teachers.

"I am sorry," she said to me. "But you must stay _here_ until we find you good-home."

My life just kept getting worse.

"Her family was out when they were requiring people to put the biometric trackers in. Anyone that tries to find her normally can't."

"I do not either," Sunny said. "Tracker is _mark of Satan_! I refuse on _religious-grounds_." She held up a stopping hand for dramatic emphasis. "I sign form." She pantomimed writing, unnecessarily.

The Indian sighed. "I'm only saying, it will be difficult to find her if she runs off, so we need to keep an eye on her."

"We will be careful! I watch."

On Hadley's Hope, we kept an earth-like calendar. I mention this because, for some reason, Sunny and her friends decided to have a church service on Saturday. She made me set up chairs and I got introduced to a bunch more strangers, mostly Korean people.

I asked Noah why he didn't just worship with the other church, in the actual chapel, but he said, "They teach false gospel."

"Why don't you go there and correct them?"

He laughed. "It is not so easy. They have not been chosen, so God has hardened their hearts. They stand in judgment, but we can save the faithful chosen."

"You...don't want them to change their mind and join you?"

"No. If God makes them into his vessels, and later join us, perhaps, but otherwise, they were chosen by God to be his vessels of wrath."

 _"So God creates people to be thrown away."_

"Yes."

I furrowed my brow. "Gee, your god sounds like the guy who makes Post granola cereals."

The sarcasm was lost on him. He blinked at me stupidly. _"I'm sorry?"_

I just sighed and rolled my eyes. "You're all crazy."

 _"We are beside ourselves for the Lord."_

Sunny's kid jabbered at me with baby talk, pawing at my leg.

 _"Abraham likes you,"_ Noah laughed.

I groaned in annoyance.

The guy Kumar had been threatening with religious language dropped by. He was pale, gaunt, with a long nose and undertaker hair. I listened as he chatted with his Indian `friend.'

"What do you think those things are?"

"I don't know, Jim. The bible says that in the Last Days, all sorts of things will come out of the earth. I know we're living out in space now, but who's to say that Satan hasn't sent some of his demons to follow us out across space?"

"Are you sure they weren't already there? I mean, demons _are_ fallen angels. What if the traditional view of cosmology is right, and we're really in heaven? God put angels outside Eden so man couldn't get back in. What if these _things_ are serving the same purpose?"

"This isn't heaven," Kumar argued. "I know that the moment I get up in the morning and reprogram those machines in a downpour."

"So maybe we're _outside_ heaven. Like that passage from Revelation talking about the Gentiles marching around heaven's outer walls..."

"I...don't think you're reading that in the right context. Let's ask Noah."

The two pulled the older Korean man aside.

"Yes?"

"Noah," Jim said. "What do you think about extraterrestrials?"

"Oh!" he laughed. "That is a _myth_. There is no such thing. Satan has planted the lie of evolution into the hearts of scientists. They say, `since evolution is true, there must be other planet with evolved intelligent thinking men. All lies." He waved his hand as if to disperse the theory of evolution like a puff of smoke.

"I've seen pictures of them," Jim said. "They looked real to me."

"So do movies," Noah said. "They are fake. Like _Photo Shop_." He chuckled, literally saying, "Yuk yuk."

I could take no more of this. "You guys are idiots. _I've seen them._ You don't know what you're talking about. I saw one of them kill my mother and the other one tore a hole through dad's chest."

Noah sighed. "I admit devil takes many forms, but sometimes when person is traumatized, they see things because they are afraid, or guilty."

"What are you saying?" I said in a cold tone.

"I believe there are no space aliens. Maybe a man killed your mother and you were frightened and thought you saw a monster. Maybe also _your father_ get sick, and _your mind_ made it seem like an alien attack him."

"And maybe you're stupid. And maybe if you walk around the base once and awhile, you'd see I'm right."

Noah let out a nervous chuckle. "Did your... _parents_ , teach you speak disrespectfully like this?"

"No. I learned it from you being stupid.."

"Your parents must have been... _very interesting._ "

I wanted to punch him in the crotch, but about that time service started.

They had nice music, but the sermons were boring. They had _essays_ , and read them like school reports.

 _And then Ssorzechola showed up._

She was a big gray Ss'sik'chtokiwij with horns, and these gun things growing out of her face. Her body had wire brush-like hair follicles sticking up all over, six arachnid-like legs and a swollen arachnid's abdomen patterned with a fiddle shaped birthmark.

Without a sound, she entered the room through a hole in the ceiling, stabbing the guitarist with a scorpion-like tail stinger, whipping him up into a hidden crawl space between their ceiling and the roof.

She had somehow melted or torn a hole through the metal in complete silence.

She lowered herself, opossum-like, into the room with that spear tail, firing the gun things.

They were like the eyes of a gecko, and they shot porcupine-like barbs like a machine gun. The barbs acted like tranquilizer darts, knocking a bunch of people out.

It was horrible. I know, I hated the strangers, but that doesn't mean I wanted them dead...or birthing alien larva.

I did the only thing I could think of. I hid inside the kitchen, working off the bolts of the nearest vent cover.

When I heard Noah playing the role of exorcist, I _had_ to peek around the corner to see how this would play out.

The thing had horns, but that in itself didn't mean anything. You don't go in front of a stampeding bull at a rodeo with a bible and expect it to not gore you to death.

The monster growled at him, then vomited a million tapeworm things into his face.

I watched them disappear into his body. It pretty much took away any appetite I had left after that pizza.

A moment later, Noah gasped and sat up, looking perfectly normal.

He gave his clothing a casual brush off, stood up, and marched out of the room.

The man went off the deep end after that. He started a cult, fed a bunch of people to the aliens, got dozens more impregnated with larva.

And I thought he was a fanatical cult leader before.

 _The worms_ had created the monster, and here they were again, in the Auriga's restricted lab.

I prayed to God that the fire would be enough to stop them.


	35. Chapter 40: Corridor 16

"See?" Lacy said to me. "There are real valid reasons why you guys should leave those labs the fuck alone, and they have nothing to do with the plans for your little family reunion. That shit in there, that's why only authorized personnel are allowed to open those doors!"

"Yeah? Well you're not doing shit to help us," I argued. "Besides. We've got it contained."

Lacy put her claws on her hips, reflecting, perhaps, the kind of human she used to be. _"Do you_. How do we know you haven't just released some kind of airborne biological agent like we had in that other room? Some things actually _spread_ through burning.

"Plus the things in that room you just torched were fucking tiny. You'd have to get an electron microscope and scour every inch of those bulwarks just to make sure nothing slithered into a crack.

"Some tapeworms are even _colorless_. For all we know, there could be dozens of them under our feet, just waiting for an open wound or an orifice to crawl inside."

" _We have heat vision_ ," said Ssunamrozedrah.

 _"Marvy,"_ Lacy growled. "Did you know that parasites like this reproduce asexually by cell division?"

Since that earned her blank looks, she added, "If you cut one in half, you'll get more worms."

Ssunamrozedrah clenched her fists, glancing uncomfortably at the floor.

 _"That's what I thought!"_

I scowled. " _What are you_ , Lacy? Who put you in that body? Did you go to heaven and see Jesus?"

Lacy shook her head. "It only went dark a second..." She frowned at her body. "And then there I was, _in this._ "

"What...religion were you... _before?_ "

"I didn't have one."

"Maybe that's what hell is like for an atheist. Just nothing forever."

Lacy only growled.

"What happened to you? Where did you come from?"

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked and clutched the sides of her head, kneeling on the floor.

"Oh God," I cried, backing away. "You got worms, don't you?"

"No," Lacy moaned. "I just..."

She trembled violently. "No! _It's my body! You stay in your corner, fuck face!"_

Her voice changed pitch as she answered herself. "You had your turn, Jen-Jen! _We had a deal!_ "

 _"You saw that thing in there!_ If I let you drive, you'll help them let worse things get out, and then where would we be?"

"I didn't see you stop them from opening that damn door!"

She struck herself in the head. " _You don't get a turn! I can't let you fuck this up!_ "

Every one of my companions stared at her.

She gave us a sheepish grin. "I am sorry. Where do we go next? I am eager to meet my cousins."

I rolled my eyes. _"So now you're being all alien and family oriented._ How long is _this_ going to last?"

"I'm not certain. Perhaps you should hurry and find my cousins."

I shrugged, leading my pack down the hallway. "Wouldn't you say they're your _nieces_? I mean-"

"To the best of my knowledge, I have no sisters. You see, my mother is Shasharmazorb."

Upon hearing the name, a picture flashed in my robotic mental databank, an image of the large creature that tried to kill me onboard the Sulaco, the one Ripley attacked with a power loader. The one that had killed me. _"The Bitch."_

Let's just say this didn't do anything to make me less inclined to murder her in cold blood. "I almost liked your other personality better."

"Speak for yourself," Ssunamrozedrah replied. "At least this one is on task!"

Christie groaned, leaning against a wall. "Hey. _Synthetic._ Where's the Betty now? Do you know?"

I frowned. "The last I checked, it was hovering around the station. Your friends are probably freaking out, trying to find the earth."

He rubbed his face. "Oh God! I just want to go home! I don't even care if they cart me off to jail! _I'm done!_ "

The man sat down on the floor, staring despondently at a wall.

Unsure about how I could help, I squatted next to him, placing my hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Look. I know you're tired, but these guys are impatient. You're going to end up being left behind."

Christie laughed. "We're on a God forsaken station in the middle of nowhere. Where are you really going to go?"

I had nothing to say to that. He had a point.

"I heard you talking about worms and shit. As long as you're fucking around with hazardous biological agents, leave me the fuck out of it."

I shrugged. "Fine. You're probably safer off where you are, anyway."

The man slouched, one hand fiddling an imaginary cigarette. "Do me a favor. If you find any of my friends, or find some booze or a package of smokes, page me."

I furrowed my brow. "Sure. But how-?"

 _"I'll figure something out_. I'm not blind, my vision just got really shitty."

And so we left him there.

"Good," Ssunamrozedrah grumbled. "The human was only slowing us down."

The hallway ahead had _carpeting_. I mention this because, a few yards down, I heard something groaning, and soft splashing sounds. A spout of water lapped out of a previously unseen crack near the floor, dampening the gray fiber.

"This place has sprung a leak," Luke observed.

I had nothing much of interest to say about this, other than, "Hopefully it's just a burst pipe in a bedroom, because otherwise we're in deep trouble."

The carpet became more sodden as we marched ahead, the damp sponge-like rug pads squishing noisily beneath our feet.

"I don't think that's a burst pipe," Luke said

"No. Probably not. There's a whole floor flooded with water. I think it's seeping up."

"What will that do to the worms?"

I could just imagine the water flowing into that room, extinguishing all the fire, reviving all the dead worms like a sprinkle of moisture on a parched potted fern.

"Shit."

I rushed to a console, rapidly pushing buttons.

I was getting a little better at the Officer Data routine. In seconds I had the tunnel closed off behind us.

"What about Christie?"

I rubbed my face in frustration. "I don't know! I was just trying to prevent a really big disaster. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

Annoying how literal my metaphor sounded at a time like this. "Honestly, I think we're getting the bad part of the deal, unless you like swimming."

We continued our march.

Luke sighed. "You promised to teach me how to read."

"I, I mean, _she_ had no right to promise anything," I said. "By the way, this is coming from an alien controlling a robot body."

He scrunched up his face. "Are you like Lacy, where you died and came back in that body?"

"Kinda."

"You're the strangest robot I've ever met."

"...Thanks, I guess."

"I know how to read, a little. And write. You think you can help me sometime?"

"Sure," I muttered. " _Sometime._ "

I've never been to an actual beach. Hearing a one inch wave lapping against the carpet...it evoked strange feelings in me. "Luke, you ever been to earth?" My robot brain complained about my bad English, but I ignored it.

He shrugged. "Yeah. I'm actually a good swimmer. I was born on a boat."

"Like in a lab?"

"No, _I have a mother._ " He bowed his head in sorrow. "Actually, _had_. Someone blew her up."

"What was she like?"

All of a sudden, he froze, clenching his fists as he stared directly ahead. Spear weapons shot out of each of his wrists, sort of like X-Men's Wolverine.

I frowned. "What, was it something I said?"

Luke furrowed his brow, and the weapons retracted into his arms. "Mom?"

A moment later, Ripley came squishing up the carpet with a small white... _thing_ clutched to her chest.

It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen, and that's a lot coming from me.

Its body, at first glance, appeared to be that of a super pale human infant, but it also had features of an alien larva, claw like hands, hard plated exoskeleton tenting up beneath its skin, no visible eyes. It mewled, cat-like, through a cleft palate, distending its jaw.

Ripley lovingly bounced this... _creature_ in her arms. "Hey, guys. Sorry I'm late. I just gave birth. It's a..."

She frowned when she glanced between its legs. Apparently the equipment could not be identified. _"It's a baby."_


	36. Chapter 41: Mind Games

Ripley was clothed, despite all... _that stuff she did in our absence_. Her leather looked a bit...melted in places, but I guess that tends to happen when you get busy with a xenomorph.

I stared at the woman, with her mewling alien baby. " _You...and Ernie...Had a child. And you didn't die._ "

Ripley smiled. " _You seem surprised._ "

"I...am. How did you have a baby with _that th-_ , I mean, _with Ernie_ , without it killing you?"

She looked at me like I were crazy for asking. _"You really want to hear the graphic details?"_

 _"...Maybe?"_

Ripley rolled her eyes. _"Maybe."_

"Hey. Let's just say I'm curious and I might want to try it."

The woman laughed at me. _"Good luck with that,_ android! _"_

"C'mon, are you going to tell me or not? It's not like they make books about this stuff!"

Her face was saying `Seriously?'

"It's me. _Newt_. Please. I really want to know how to make a baby without killing people. _How..."_

"Fine. _If you have to know..._ " Ripley cleared her throat, looking a little embarrassed. _"When I said I gave birth, I equivocated a little._ I actually... _fertilized her._ "

I gawked at the woman. "Wait. _You're a dude?"_

 _"You'd think a droid like yourself could comprehend reproduction outside the traditional male/female/gay/straight binary mindset."_

I glanced between my legs, but of course I'm a robot, so I examined Ssunamrozedrah instead. "How is that possible? We're not built with a womb."

 _"The eggs have to come from somewhere."_ She paused. "What do you mean, _we?_ "

 _"I already told you I'm Newt._ Don't you believe me? _"_

I told her about the whole ordeal with the chair and everything.

 _"We're betrothed,"_ said Ripley. "I'm sorry, but if you're getting any ideas, you'll have to find somebody else."

"Thanks," I muttered. _"Guess I'll go lay an egg in a person then."_

"Do you _really_ want this that bad?"

Androids don't blush, but I think my alien body in the chair probably did. "I...don't know. After I died, I became something I really don't like. I haven't felt loved in a long time. I'm lonely."

Ripley frowned. "That's sad. Want to hold my baby?"

I eagerly nodded, holding the infant... _thing_ to my chest, thinking about what it would be like to be a mother. It tried to bite my fingers, but when it decided they weren't tasty, it allowed me to rub its head. I was _so_ jealous. "Did you give it a name yet?"

"Ernie and I have... _kicked a few around,_ but it's difficult when you don't know what sex it is."

"How about `Angel'? The jury's still out on that one. Or maybe `Sammy', so it can be Samuel or Samantha."

"You know, Sammy _is_ a cute name. I'll have to ask Ernie about it."

"Ironically, Ernie is a guy's name."

 _"Yeah..."_

"I still don't get it. How are you having a baby now? Didn't you just... _do it_ an hour or so ago?"

"Time seems to be working differently here," said Mary. "Perhaps it is the same with her race."

"Record turnaround time for a baby," Ripley agreed. "The `baby bump' came and went so fast I think my stretch marks are actually skid marks. I'm pretty sure Sam is five months old already."

"What did you eat?... _During your pregnancy?_ "

Ripley shrugged. "Anything I could find. I raided some supply lockers, and a fat guy's refrigerator. And then my water broke. Ernie seemed to know how to midwife...So what are we doing here?"

"Same stuff," I said, bouncing the child. "Opening dangerous laboratories in attempts of finding imprisoned family members."

"I smelled a Ss'sik'chtokiwij a couple doors down, but I couldn't unlock the room. Maybe we should check to see who's there."

I raised an eyebrow. "Lead the way."

Ripley waved to the hybrid boy we rescued. "Hello, Matthew."

"Um," I blurted. "That's _Luke._ "

 _"What are you talking about? Luke was in the spaceship with my twin."_

"No, no," I said. "I know what Luke, I mean, _Matthew_ looks like."

I could see the archival footage in Big Bird's electronic brain. The one that looked like a pillbug was Luke. Matt looked more like a spider.

"I've been asking her why she keeps calling me Luke," said the boy. "But she acts like I'm not saying anything."

I blinked, and I was looking at a completely different kid. He seemed to be the same exact age as the other child, but now he resembled a small hairy version of Mortal Kombat's Goro, with a smaller set of less human-like spider arms growing out of his shoulders. His face looked human, but he had an extra set of eyes, and mandibles around his mouth. The top of his jumpsuit kind of looked like a tank top because of the extra limbs.

"N-no," I stammered. "That's not right! You were someone else!"

I saw the scary old man flicker into existence behind Ripley. I pointed, and he was gone again.

"Big Bird," I said. "What's happening? I keep seeing things!"

"I...believe Father has been altering your perception."

"He can do that?"

"It's called `hacking.'"

"Why are you talking to a wall?" Matt asked.

Ripley was holding her baby again, but I didn't remember giving it to her.

I stumbled back, leaning on a door frame. "Big Bird, how do I know what's real? How can I tell if _anything_ is real?"

 _"Would you like to return to the chair?"_

"...no." I rubbed my cybernetic eyes, hoping to eliminate the visual hallucinations. " _The Matrix has me._ "

Father disappeared, but Matt remained an arachnid.

"Ripley, I'm confused. Who else is a prisoner on this ship?"

She stared at me with concern. "Why are you asking _me? They gave me shock therapy."_

"You obviously know more than me!"

 _"Great._ _A robot with Alzheimer's. Now I've seen everything."_

"There's only four of us," said Matt. "Ernie came here to rescue me and Zeke. She brought along Jeremy, and Jeremy got captured too. She also thinks Samuel is here, but she never actually saw that larva hatch."

I frowned. "She told me to look for someone named _Lammy._ And _Amos._ "

"Lammy and Amos?" Ripley asked. "I'm pretty sure they were on the ship."

"Then why did Ernie ask me to find them?"

"Are you sure she wasn't just saying that _she missed them, and wanted to get back to them?"_

"Um..." I froze in thought, pondering the diagram of the Auriga I'd seen on the computer, the vision of where all the lifeforms were located. "I...don't know."

Ssunamrozedrah nodded. "I helped free them from the compound on earth. They did not accompany us into this space station."

"So...there's only three? Two and a half? That certainly makes our job easier!"

"I hope you're right."

Ripley showed us a rusty metal security door, marred with deep scratches.

I had a sudden flashback.

When Archeron's atmosphere generators first came online, a flash flood ruined everything in the trailer my family was staying in. We temporarily moved to an upper level housing unit, one with a nearly identical scratch pattern on its door, not made by aliens, but by vandals.

The place had thin walls. Late at night, as we neared the end of moving our stuff, I made a little too much noise prying open the cabinets the lot managers had painted shut, and a woman yelled at me through the wall. I could also hear the neighbor's toilet seat going down, the Mariachi music downstairs, and snoring as I lay in my bedroom. Sometimes I heard people having sex.

The worst thing I overheard was when we first moved in. I guess the neighbor's boyfriend didn't know the meaning of the word "No."

"Hey!" she shouted. "Don't come in here! This is _my house!_ "

The man muttered something, and cussed at her.

"Hey! Get the fuck out of my house!" she half screamed, half cried. "I swear to God, I'll call the constable!"

More cussing and screaming.

I just lay in bed with my eyes wide open, listening to them fight, wondering if I needed to call the constable myself, waited for a scream that might possibly be the woman, or maybe the man being murdered. I never found out what happened.

The thing that bothered me most about the exchange was how she called her apartment ` a house.' It wasn't a house, it was a temporary HAB unit in a complex of living modules, _with a building manager_. Nothing that could be remotely compared to an actual house. It was as much an oxymoron as the phrase `apartment homes.'

 _"Get the fuck out of my house!"_

It was the laboratory door that prompted this flashback. The shape of the gouges and scratches resembled the graffiti knifed and spray painted on the front of our dwelling.

It brought something else to mind as well.

The hall closet had monsters in it.

During the daytime, it was a narrow compartment, a couple shelves built in front of the plumbing system. Push something too far back and you'd knock something to the floor. At night, though, it became a darkened portal to hell.

Sometimes my parents would go out on scavenging expeditions and leave me and Timmy alone in the unit. When darkness fell, I'd hear things scratching around in that closet.

I heard growling, and voices. Sometimes I thought they called to me.

And then, after we moved, after that facehugger thing got dad, and I broke in the unit to steal food, that same closet door came open, all on its own.

"Is your battery running low?" Ripley asked me. "Or are you having trouble with your programming?"

It seemed I'd been spacing out again. "Sorry."

I set about dismantling the security device on the laboratory door.

Lacy shrieked, tackling me to the damp squishy carpet, her claws crushing my throat. "Touch that door and I'm removing your head from your shoulders! Don't think I won't!"

I stared up at the fish hook shaped birthmark on her shiny obsidian face. "Ripley says there's a Ss'sik'chtokiwij in here. It's not a disease. _I believe her._ "

"You're not opening that door!" Lacy screamed, bashing my head into the floor. "Touch it again, and I swear to God I'll make your little machine body stop working, then find whatever it is you're keeping your real body and-"

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed my attacker, throwing her into a junction box, fists smashing into her stomach. "You backstabbing traitor! I should rip your bones out of your chest and use them as my xylophone!"

Lacy struck her in the face. "You're too stupid to make a xylophone. You couldn't make a -"

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed her around the throat, pressing her into a bulkhead. I heard bones cracking. "Call me stupid again and I'll use your headless carcass to hatch eggs!"

"Not before I rip your jaw from your ugly face and shit in your mouth!"

She shrieked, clawing at Ssunamrozedrah's face.

At this point, Ssunamrozedrah got fed up and just started wailing on her.

It all became a biting mass of bodies, like dogs fighting over a bone. Lacy ended up on the bottom, Mary snarling and pressing her to the floor like the proverbial alpha wolf.

The security keypad now hung from its cables. I was about to attempt rewiring the system when my cybernetic eyes picked up traces of chocolate on the buttons.

I could tell seven digits had been depressed several times, but three of them had never been touched.

Big Bird's brain went into probability calculation mode, but my brain said Tommy Twotone.

I typed the song title in as a joke, but then I ended up popping the door open eight seconds before my android half decided it was a likely choice.

A moment later, a black body sprang through the threshold, smashing me backwards into the damp carpet with a wet splash.

At first glance, I saw the same scary bug monster that killed my parents.

A memory flashed before me: The hall closet flying open, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij face appearing from its shadowy depths.

It rushed into the open, pinned me to the floor, burning saliva dripping down my neck.

But then this thing spoke, shattering the memory.

 _"_ Oh _baby bear! Your brother's been sleeping in my bed! You know what that means, don't you?"_

"No!" I whimpered. "You're dead! The colony exploded!"

 _"Not before I got my hands on your brother."_

The creature breathed in my face. "Dressed him up like Goldilocks. _Remember that, Baby Bear? His ass looked real cute. I had a real good time with him!"_

In a secondary flash of memory, I realized it hadn't been an alien at all coming out of that hall closet so many years ago, just a pale guy in a leather gimp suit trying to take my brother's clothes off. He'd taken out the shelves to fit in there, to surprise me.

I tried to run away, he grabbed me and put a knife to my throat. When my brother hurried to the door to get help, a fat sweaty guy in a furry bear costume came in and grabbed him.

An alien eventually ripped his guts out, but not before he'd dressed Timmy up like Goldilocks and... _done some things to him_.

I only _wished_ it had been an alien.

"Shut up!" I yelled. "Shut up!"

"He's with me right now, Becky. _Down in hell_. Got him bending over in those cute little stockings."

"You shut the fuck up!" I screamed, ramming my fist into the creature's head. "Say one more word and I'm sending you and that alien body back to hell where you came from!"

The alien gave me a slow mocking laugh. "In hell I screw your little brother, over and over again, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Remember that laser cutter I killed the centipede thing with? I still had it.

I switched it on, raised it to slice that ugly bug face to pieces.

A claw clamped down on my throat, but not my attacker's.

I found myself being raised off my feet by my neck.

"I'd rethink your next move, machine!" Ssunamrozedrah snarled. "Harm my cousin in any way, and I'll separate your working parts and throw them in a scrap heap!"

"You heard what she was saying!" I yelled. "She sounded exactly like the man who kidnapped my brother!"

 _"The only thing I heard was you yelling and trying to slice her head in half."_ She bashed my head into the wall. "Your circuit boards seem to be defective. _How about we take them all out and put some better ones in?_ "

I thought she would do just that, but then I heard Opvossu-Jesus shrieking. The previously imprisoned alien had her on the carpet, claws clamped around her throat.

Her mouth claw thingy came out, punching a hole through Opvossu's head.

Like a stomped cockroach, it took a couple more punches to truly send her into the great beyond.

Another dogfight ensued. The stranger, possessing a great strength, required three Ss'sik'chtokiwij to hold her down.

"She is possessed," Mary said.

Now free from Ssunamrozedrah's clutches, I groaned, "No shit."

"The real Becky or Newt would not try to kill one who is possessed like this. _She would attempt to save them,_ like she did me."

"That's bullshit. _You_ didn't make it personal. _She_ did!"

Ripley handed her baby to Ruth.

Without a word, she pressed her lips to the possessed alien's head, made the sign of the cross along its dome.

"You bitch!" the Ss'sik'chtokiwij shrieked., throwing a tantrum.

A black cloud dispersed from its body, and it lay still, breathing calmly on the sodden moldering carpet.

I stared in shock. " _You?_ How can _you_ even...?"

"I learned a few things from Ernie's friends." She took her baby back into her arms. _"Numbers 11:25."_

Ripley helped the Ss'sik'chtokiwij back to its feet. "Hello, Zeke, I'm a friend of your mother's."

Zeke brought her in for a hug.

I examined the lab she'd been kept in.

Ernie wasn't the only one who had weird hobbies. Somehow Zeke had crafted giant sculptures of _The_ _Outer Limits'_ Zanti Misfits out of butter. I guess she takes after her mother in the creative arts.

It was kind of cool, but I couldn't figure out where the hell she got the butter from, or why lab people had allowed her to work on such an ambitious creative art project in the middle of the room.

The display had been set up on a lab table. Behind it, I saw the cell that Zeke had emerged from. Why it was open, who let her out, and why they weren't there now, I couldn't begin to guess.

Ripley stepped into the room, admiring the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's handiwork. "Wow, Zeke. That's a really good butter sculpture." I wasn't sure why, but I thought I saw her lips making the wrong shapes as she said this.

Unlike a human baby, `Sammy' could climb like a monkey. He crawled up around Ripley's neck, nuzzling against her. It was cute.

Out of curiosity, I broke off a leg of one of the sculptures and ate it.

Androids _can_ experience taste. Their tongues have sensors that check for poisons, analyze chemical compounds, and in some fashion the combination of the data can be... _addicting...in a Tetris sort of way,_ you know, like making patterns and filing rows of information away in databanks.

It wasn't the sweet cream butter taste I expected, nor butterscotch. For some reason, though, it seemed... _kinda tasty_ , and I even thought I _salivated_ a little.

Ripley complained that I was ruining the sculptures, but again, her mouth didn't appear to match the words.

"Sorry."

"You're hungry, aren't you?" a voice asked. "I can see it. It's all over your face."

I looked up and noticed a little blonde girl in long johns staring back at me through the window of a prison cell.

I did a double take. _I'd seen this girl before!_ "Sandy?"

The girl scowled. "What?"

I pointed at her. "You! _You're Sandy Miller!_ "

"No," the girl said. " _I'm Sarah._ Could you please let me out?"

"Hi, Sarah," Ripley said, waving to the child.

"That's not Sarah!" I protested. "That's Sandy!"

The woman gave me a sad look. "Ernie told me about you. _You've been forgetting things._ "

I raised my voice in anger. "Dammit, I remember who she is! It's not Sarah, it's Sandy Miller!"

"My name _is_ Sarah," the girl said quietly. "I don't know who you think I am, but it's not Sandy Miller."

 _"They were cloned,"_ Ripley said. _"Like me."_

I didn't want to admit they might be right. I kept trying to think of reasons why they were wrong. I rubbed my face in frustration, looking away.

I glanced around the room, and down the hallway. "Where's Lacy?"

"I don't know," said Ssunamrozedrah. "She ran off. Good riddance."

She scowled at me. "Speaking of which, have you abandoned your plot to kill my family members, or are you merely waiting for a more opportune time?"

"Relax," I said. _"We're cool._ "

Ripley marched up to the child's cell, frowning at the security lock. "Hey, regardless of what you think her name is, could you help me get her out of here?"

"Sure," I said.

I examined the keypad for a moment, took apart some of the wires, and then something just snapped.

All of a sudden, I lost control of my body, and I struck Ripley across the head with a microscope.

"Newt, what-"

Ripley caught my arm as I swung again, but my body responded with a head butt.

"Just because we don't agree on the girl's name doesn't mean we have to fight!"

I slugged her in the stomach. Raised the microscope again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him.

The old man.

He was laughing.


	37. Chapter 42: Pooka Bloop Bloop

The moment I brought the microscope down, Ripley caught it and smashed it me across the head with the base, glass slide shattering on the floor. It seemed my friend had gained some serious combat skills in my absence.

As I fell to the floor, Ripley stood above me with the weapon, preparing to strike me again.

"I'm sorry," I blurted. "Something's taking over my body. I really don't want to hurt you."

But then my leg shot up and kicked her in the crotch.

"Something's taking over my body too!" Ripley growled, bashing me with the microscope. _"Call it being pissed off!"_

She hut me again, then grabbed me around the throat, feeling the synthetic flesh with her fingers.

"What are you doing?" I cried as my hands shot up to choke her.

"Looking for your shutoff button."

My larynx had a push button, just like the front of a computer. The moment her thumb made it click, I blacked out, awakening in the chair again.

The holograms of alien Della Reese and my ever present yellow insectoid friend stared back at me.

"Now what? Ripley just shut me off!"

Della Reese growled something.

"Good news," said Big Bird. "I have discovered a way to free you from the chair without killing you."

"Great! Let me out of this thing!"

Big Bird bowed her head to indicate sadness. "Unfortunately, if I do this, the entire system will destabilize and your friends will die."

I sighed in frustration. "So what do I do then? They need help to free the others."

Big Bird processed this for an entire minute. "You _could_ use my disembodied consciousness matrix to network to them through the various computer systems, but you may encounter another attack from Father, and potentially lose control of your physical body and its connection to the system. Your second option would be to share bodies with Mara, but she is a conscious entity as well, and may have her own ideas about what she wants to do with her own body."

"None of those options seem very good, Big Bird."

"You don't have any good options." She paused. "Unless it is acceptable for you to occupy a body two feet in height."

I frowned. "Explain."

Mr. Pooka Bloop Bloop was a children's novelty toy. Green, fat bodied, kind of looked like a teddy bear. Apparently inspired by _Where the Wild Things Are_ , the thing had a fat head, goofy bat ears, a chicken's beak complete with comb, googly cartoon eyes, and a pair of stubby monster horns. The thing had fingers, but they were pudgy, clumsy four fingered things unsuitable for any kind of delicate operation.

"You have _got_ to be kidding!"

"This model is highly resistant to cyber attacks. Although this could potentially interfere with your ability to access certain computer mainframes, it will protect you from Father."

"And if Father gets pissed off, he'll just send a synth to pick me up and shove me in a locker."

"You currently have few alternatives. If you wish to access your allies, this may be the best option."

"And there aren't any other synths in the whole station that I can use instead?"

"None that are free from Father's range of control."

"Fine. I'll take Mr. Poopy Poop."

"The proper name is Pooka Bloop Bloop, Bloopster or Mr. Bloopy."

"I'll call him whatever I like. This is trash."

`Boopy' had been left on a desk in someone's bedroom. I knocked over a lamp trying to get up.

The moment I had my furry robot body in an upright position, my puppet mouth blurted nonsense and weird animal noises. Then this came out: _"I'm where I'm supposed to be! If I stay in the right spot, I can smell cocoa butter and fried chicken at the same time!"_

Judging by my dialog, and the room I occupied, it appeared to be one of those situations where an immature grown man reprogrammed a kid's toy to say inappropriate things. If I so choose, I could select an entire _suite_ of crudely humorous quotations, and set them to go off on a schedule or during key social interactions.

The man's bedroom (I found it difficult to imagine a woman owning it) contained a laser and a carton of that cubed alcoholic stuff you got out of little individually wrapped Jell-O style containers, a homebrew moonshine kit (for a military station, they seemed a little lax on inspections) a video game system, and pot.

With all the junk food and soiled laundry lying about, it probably smelled bad, but my current body had no olfactory sensors. Well, unless you count the smoke detector.

I stood up, tried to gracefully dismount the desk I'd been placed upon, but I slipped on its dirty varnished surface, banged my head on a table _and_ a chair, and fell on the grungy carpeting. A shower of stale Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers rained down on my fuzzy coat.

No damage. One thing I could say about this toy: It was built to withstand abuse. Although it prompted the "Major malfunction" line from _Full Metal Jacket_ by default, this _doll_ could still move. I brushed myself up, staggering to the door.

Of course I couldn't reach the panels. I felt kind of like Winnie the Pooh trying to bust out of jail, had to drag a chair up to the door and push the button.

It seemed I had entered a corridor adjacent to the one I'd found the butter sculptures in. By then the water level had risen, standing water an inch above the sponge damp carpeting. My stubby legs sopped up the liquid all too well, making my movements annoyingly sluggish.

Hearing noise, I turned and spotted Ripley and the Ss'sik'chtokiwij marching down a corridor adjacent to mine. I had to force my clunky little body to do something unnatural, running, but I managed to catch up with them, making a mental note to permanently erase _Chariots of Fire_ from the robot bear's playlist.

I saw Big Bird's body slung limp over Mary Jorden's shoulders. Someone had removed the android's arms, making her resemble the Venus de Milo. Ruth carried the arms. I saw the little girl with them. Ripley had freed her from the cell, apparently.

Not possessed anymore, Zeke looked calm, well behaved.

Nobody was particularly happy about the death of Opvossu-Jesus. Unlike her namesake, I doubted she could just jump up and not be dead. I heard them talking about a burial, but Ripley said the place would flood soon, there really wasn't an easy way of lugging the corpse around for burial. We'd just have to do a memorial type thing without the body.

"Besides," she muttered. "If enough water gets in this corridor, she'll drift down, and we can just float her to an airlock."

I rushed up to them, waving my fat little arms. "Hey! It's me, Newt! Sorry for what I did before. Father was taking over my system. I'm better now."

And then my robot body automatically supplied, _"Whose leg do I have to hump to get a dry martini around here?"_

Ripley snorted a little in amusement. "Well, at least now if you try to attack me, I can just kick you like a football."

 _"Thanks for that vote of confidence."_ My robot raised both arms and added, _"Are you threatening me? I need TP for my bunghole!"_

"Oh God. I feel like kicking you right now."

"You're talking to my man all wrong," said my robot. _"Do it again, and I'll stab you in the face - with a soldering iron!"_

Ripley just groaned and rubbed her forehead.

Matt grinned at me. "I love those. I used to play with them all the time."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, but I'm a _me._ "

My response automatically prompted a soundbyte from _The Matrix Reloaded_ , but I caught it before it could play. I briefly wondered if Bumblebee from the Transformers got this annoyed with all the pop culture recordings.

"So," Ripley said to me. " _Newt._ Where's Jeremy?"

I had to stop a Pearl Jam song from queuing up in my speaker, and when I paused to check the robot's database for a map, it played the Jeopardy theme. "Sorry. I'm thinking."

Pooka's brain wasn't nearly as robust as Big Bird's. It was mostly an entertainment media junk drawer, but it had a few useful functions, like hacking modules and detailed maps of fire exits and safety equipment locations. Plus, Big Bird had downloaded part of her consciousness into the system (and dumped several seasons' with of _Simpsons_ and _South Park_ recordings in the process).

My body came equipped with some good hardware, too. I removed a panel on a bulkhead with an automatic socket wrench that came out of my index finger, then plugged a rod from my middle into a socket to hack into the maintenance computer, kind of like R2-D2, but without that combination lock thingy.

It turned out that Pooka's hacking system had a lot more advanced features than Big Bird's android body did, mostly because they were illegal. For this reason, I had little difficulty finding Jeremy's location. "She's three levels down. Two North, Section B."

"Show us," Ripley said.

I led them to a maintenance hatch at the end of the corridor, picking the lock.

Inside, I found a ladder, connected to the side of the shaft for a freight elevator.

As I began my descent down the first set of rungs, Sandy gave me a shove, and I fell screaming into the darkness.

 _"Oops!"_

Her tone sounded unconvincing.

My furry mechanical body splashed down in a pool of black water, descending for what felt like forever. I tried to swim, but it seemed I hadn't been designed for use as a flotation device.

The lack of sensory data sent my thoughts down the rabbit hole of memory.

The first time I awakened in my new alien body, I watched the larva's spirit scream in agony with my old human mouth, getting a grim sort of pleasure from seeing it get its just desserts.

After it died, and some of the rage had subsided, I adjusted to my new alien eyes. I was shocked as you are that the thing could actually see.

There'd been a problem with the spaceship we'd been taking to earth. During my cryogenic sleep, I'd been dropped into an emergency escape vehicle with seven other cryogenic pods.

I thought Ripley and her army friend Corporal Hicks were going to be my new mommy and daddy, but Hicks had died when the EEV crash landed. Ripley would die soon afterwards.

Beside him lay a pod containing the oozing, half melted remains of the Bishop unit that had previously saved my life during the battle with the queen alien.

My hidden eyeball-ish things returned to my human form. Back arched, fingers poised to claw at the glass, face permanently frozen in an expression of absolute terror.

I flashed the body my middle claw. "Serves you right, you bitch."

I sunk deeper into the dark flood water of the elevator shaft.

Memories came at random, unbidden to my mind, old bad memories that got in the way of the good.

I remembered I used to have a friend named Lacy Peterson. She had some kind of disease, so doctors always kept her in a tent. Me and Kamara, a friend from school, would always come by to play with her. Sometimes we'd go outside and play fetch. It was before they put in the atmosphere generators, so we'd be wearing space suits, throwing a stick around. Lacy was fine with that, because she already had to go around with oxygen equipment on all the time.

Wait. Why would Lacy be playing fetch?

Maybe we had a dog...no, I guess a dog couldn't fetch anything with a helmet on, could it? I don't even remember there being dogs on the base.

I _know_ we played fetch out there. On the rocky landscape. _Maybe it was a pretend dog_.

Okay, back to Lacy. She lived in this big metal thing that looked like a missile silo, so she could breathe. We'd play chess and Monopoly.

I'm not sure what happened after the aliens attacked. They probably made short work of her.

I forgot how I got to hydroponics, but I distinctly remember arriving there with mom, Kamara, Sandy Miller, and Sandy's dad.

I rescued Sandy from one of those _things_ when they started killing my classmates. I know that much.

Hydroponics had been built out of a cave. I stood staring at a pair of round algae covered windows as Mr. Miller let us in with his badge.

We entered a jungle of farm plants taller than my head, getting damp and cold from the spraying machines.

A two story farm with a spiral stair and mirrors to reflect sunlight.

Sandy's mom worked there. She looked a lot like my android, but I think she was human.

"Mom!" Sarah cried, running to her.

"Careful," the woman muttered, setting the plant down. "Every time you stomp a leaf, that's one less minute you have to breathe." Ms. Miller was obsessed with her work.

Sarah sighed, slowing down. "Yes, yes. I know."

I greeted her.

The woman brushed herself off, speaking in pleasanter tones. "What brings you girls here?"

She then made a joke about me walking my mom. She always did have a strange sense of humor.

As Sandy cried to her mom about the attack on our school, Brice came hobbling out on his crutches. He wasn't too happy about seeing mom there. I think they'd had some fights about something, and they just didn't get along.

I guess Sandy's dad was mad too, because he had a gun pointed at mom, assuring Brice he had everything under control.

Brice just shook his head, brushing his hair aside as he straightened himself. He cleared his throat. "So...Just out of curiosity, why on God's green earth did you bring that creepy son of a bitch down here?"

No. He didn't say that. Why would he say that about mom?

God, what is wrong with my mind?

Wait. That's right. We captured Ernie with an electrified collar, dragging him down to Brice's hut for an examination. I'd just taken it all out of context.

"They all got loose," said Mr. Miller. "Doug and Keith are both dead."

"So you thought you'd bring him down here to give him a challenge." He lifted a crutch in the air. "A little treat on a stick."

 _"He saved the girls' lives._ ," Mr. Miller muttered, reluctance clear in his voice. _"They think it's a pet."_

 _"Sucks to be you."_ Brice hobbled back a few feet, still staring at me. "What happened to his head? It looks like Swiss cheese!"

"Bad fight," the alien muttered.

Brice laughed. "Serves you right, asshole! You don't fuck with an ex-Marine!"

He hobbled sideways in a half turn. "If you'll excuse me, I've got some deadly alien killing weapons to assemble...Maybe some caustic chemicals to spray into Ernie's brain."

"Grouch," Ernie muttered.

Sandy laughed.

Mr. Miller explained our situation to his wife. "Those things are going to kill everybody in the base if we don't find some weapons and get everyone to a safe place. Until the ship arrives, we're going to need to arm ourselves and build fortification. You're going to have to hack the code systems so we can get in Munitions."

His wife nodded. "The xenomorph appears to be in danger of infection."

Mr. Miller shrugged. "No skin off my butt."

"We need him to be healthy," Sandy said. "So he can protect us. Do you have any Band Aids? Bandages?"

"What? And waste good medical supplies?"

"It won't help," Ernie groaned. "I wish I could just...salivate and cover the holes like that `Fix A Flat' stuff Doug told me about."

"I've heard some very good things about duct tape!" Brice joked.

He shook his head, grumbling something about living with a bunch of idiots as he hobbled away from us.

"Can you make patches from other things?" Sandy asked. "Like actual rubber?"

"You're a genius!" the alien exclaimed.

Mrs. Miller nodded like I asked for something ordinary. "I'll see if there's something in the shed."

We got Ernie a bunch of pieces of metal, and she used her acid to fix her brain. _Kind of_.

She dropped slag on the wrong part of her brain, making her say `mother' over and over for a minute straight.

And then, when she finally recovered enough to talk, she said something very strange and chilling: "Rebecca, honey, something bad is going to happen to all of us, but you're going to need to stay strong, okay? When you die, when you get sent back, you're going to need to fight. And when the right time comes, you gotta promise me that you'll do the right thing, and give your life to stop the worm Visjodro from infecting earth. Can you do that, sweetie?"

I answered her with a scream.

I don't remember what happened immediately after that, but I guess I didn't leave, _or maybe couldn't leave_ , on account of all the Ss'sik'chtokiwij. I just remember Mr. Miller saying, _"Are you done yet?"_

"Things like this take time!" Ernie hissed.

 _"Time is what we don't have."_

He glanced at his wife. "Mara, see what you can do to unlock Munitions."

She smirked. "Yes, sir."

The woman marched out of the hut.

Sandy reached out to pet Ernie on the head.

"I wouldn't do that, Miss," Brice warned. "Even if he doesn't tear you limb from limb, I'm sure even a playful love nip will give you an incurable disease."

"Why are you so mean to Ernie?" she asked.

"Who said I was mean? Do you think I'd intentionally piss off the alien version of a mountain lion? Believe me, you haven't seen my mean."

He swallowed and hobbled a step back. "That being said, I sure as hell wouldn't do anything to piss off Ernie or any of his friends. I've already lost the use of my legs. I don't want to lose anything else."

Mara dashed back in to report she'd done what her husband requested.

Mr. Miller gave her a wink. "Thank you, sweetie."

He wanted Mara to come along with us and mom, but she told him, "You know I can't. The needs of this base come first. If we have any survivors at all, my place is here. Oxygen levels must be maintained at all costs."

Mr. Miller frowned. "You sure you'll be safe in here?"

"Relax, chief," Brice said. " _She'll be fine._ You're looking at the MacGyver of Archeron."

Mom pointed to Ernie. "What about _that thing?_ What are we going to do with _that?_ "

"It's restrained," Brice said. "I'll watch it, make sure it doesn't get out."

The look on Mr. Miller's face indicated he didn't share the man's optimism, but he nodded anyway. "With any luck, we'll be back in fifteen minutes or so. Keep safe and out of sight."

We left Ernie in the hut, quietly making our exit.

"Lou," said Mrs. Miller. "Wait."

He spun around. "Did you change your mind-?"

She silenced his question about changing her mind with a sloppy kiss. "Be careful. Hurry back."

As we crossed a field of corn, I taught mom the Ss'sik'chtokiwij language, just the basic things to help her survive, such as "I am plague ridden, do not eat me", and things she might need to know when eavesdropping, such as "she is in here" or "I cannot find her."

Mr. Miller suddenly drew his gun. "Did you hear that?"

We looked around, but saw nothing.

The man spasmed, coughing up blood. His gun went off, shattering a plant mirror.

A scimitar-like tail erupted from his chest, spraying the plants with red.

"Daddy!" Sandy screamed. "No!"

The big black monster tossed Mr. Miller's mutilated body aside like a rag doll.

I was terrified, I was sad. Tears kept pouring out of my eyes.

Other aliens came through the corn stalks, like sharks circling prey.

"Run!" mom shouted.

We rushed through the farm, mangling a bunch of plants, which I _knew_ would drive Mara crazy.

When we reached the end of the farm, mom informed me that she'd lost the key to the door. A release button could be activated to bypass the lock, but the moment put her shiny black claw to it, a dark shape appeared behind the glass.

...Did I say claw? I meant _`hand.'_

More of those aliens pushed their way through the foliage. We ran away.

"Hey!" a voice screamed.

A series of loud metallic clanging sounds followed. "Over here!"

Mrs. Miller stood on a staircase, beating the steps with a heavy robotic arm from a farming machine.

"Mom?" Sarah whimpered.

The aliens, including the big one, rushed off to investigate. Unfortunately, one of them didn't want to let us go.

"Sandy?" Mother asked, pointing to a field of milo we approached. "Is there another exit over this way?"

Sandy only cried.

"Sarah?"

Wheezing in between sobs, Sandy shook her head.

I told her only a reservoir lay over in that direction.

"Let's keep going. Maybe we can find a weapon or a place to hide."

Mara still kept the other aliens distracted, but I wasn't sure how long our luck'd hold up.

"Baa."

We'd stumbled upon Smalls, hydroponics's mascot goat.

The animal cheered Sandy up, but the calm proved to be short lived. The Ss'sik'chtokiwij pursuing us ripped Smalls to pieces, throwing the poor girl into hysterics again.

We approached an elevator, but when I got within a yard of the door, the Ss'sik'chtokiwij threw me to the ground, dribbling its acid saliva on my face.

Its claw came up to tear me open.

Boom! The creature shrieked as its body exploded in fire.

Mr. Pittman had been waiting for us at the elevator, armed with Molotov cocktails.

He trapped the creature with a giant mechanical arm the farm used for cultivating stuff. Although it seemed like we were safe, the alien was already melting pieces away, trying to wiggle herself out. We hurried to Brice's side.

The elevator wasn't really meant for human cargo, but once we moved around a few fertilizer bins, we could fit in there well enough. The only problem was the noise.

Brice had brought Ernie along, like a hostage, chaining him to the back of the car.

"You wouldn't hurt us, would you, Ernie?" Sandy asked.

"No."

"He'll just let his family do it for him," Brice said. "Won't you, Bernie?"

Ernie just sighed.

"It's not fair for you to say that," said Sandy. "Ernie risked his life to save us. He fought the other aliens. He's not their friend anymore."

Pittman rolled his eyes. "Right. He just likes putting adults and the handicapped out to pasture."

Ernie growled at the insult, but he only laughed. "What's wrong, Bernie? Did I touch a nerve?"

"Have you ever sliced your sister's head open and watched her die?"

Brice swallowed. "I don't have a sister."

Ernie sneezed. "Well I did. Her name name was Kiarsshkoy."

She coughed and sneezed.

"She's crying," said Sandy.

I just frowned at her.

The second the elevator stopped, Mara rushed to meet us, flinging open the safety gate. "Hurry! We have to go now!"

Mara's eyes bulged as a pair of claws ripped her stomach open. White fluid sprayed out instead of blood.

The memory is foggy here. I mean, I'm certain that Sandy's mother was human, but I keep seeing flashes of the android version of herself. I know I saw one charging her battery in a wall outlet, and I saw one bleeding coolant, but why would Sandy have a robot mother? I thought about asking Big Bird, but what would she know?

And then my memory got foggier.

I remember my portly mother, in her puffer jacket and jeans, leaping up on the big alien. I remember Mara grabbing the monster by the legs, and then somehow mom and the big alien went rolling down the spiral staircase.

But mom was horribly out of shape! That kind of rough physical attack-it seems... _wrong for her_. I mean, adrenaline can sometimes give you amazing strength, but...

Okay, so maybe it wasn't mom. Maybe it was Miss Turley, my gym teacher. I _do_ remember my rescuer having dark, oily skin...

I caught another flash, a vision of Sandy's body curled on its side in a spreading pool of blood, the pant legs of her jumpsuit rolled up to her knees, a large chunk cut from her calf muscle in a precisely cut square, like meat in a butcher shop.

Ernie stood over the body, poised with a scalpel.

When I saw her turn around to face me, I ran away with a scream.

I shook the horrible image out my head.

My descent slowed, and I saw a vision of other Sandys, floating in a big tank filled with pink liquid, inside a science lab.

Was I one of them? I began to wonder.

That hole in my memory. That thousand mile gap I thought I'd never figure out how to fill. I'd at last stumbled across the barrier, and it only took the shock of falling down an elevator shaft.

 _The clones._

It just wasn't one planet that had these kinds of places. They had a secondary cloning facility outside the prison on Fury 161.

I found one of the Sandys lying on a hospital bed, tied down for the purpose of birthing more of the clones.

The young woman, mad with the isolation, the repeated birthings, the children that got removed from her, never to be seen again, demanded to trade bodies with me. She was desperate to leave her old one, to start a new life from scratch.

Sandy told me once I'd freed her, I'd have everything I wanted, a new life in human flesh. "Give me your body, Newt!"

She scared me. That's why I said no. "I don't want your body!" I shouted. "I want my old one back! _Alive!_ "

"Newt," she urged. " _If you took my body, you could tell Ripley you were stuck in space for twenty years. You could be with her again, in a form she wouldn't hate or be afraid of._ You'd be human, just like her."

For a moment, I seriously considered doing it, _but something seemed off._ Plus, well, she seemed pretty damn pathetic. I mean, the girl hadn't known or experienced life outside of simulations for a good twenty years. "...No. I can't lie to Ripley. I love her too much."

"You selfish bitch!" Sandy screamed.

Now, as my machine body settled on the roof of the submerged elevator, I began to wish I _had_ taken her up on the offer.

I'm all alone. I've been saying all this stuff, but no one is ever going to hear me.

I began this narrative thinking that someone would listen, maybe send a communication back across the void, but I'm afraid nothing is being sent. Maybe the transmission system isn't working.

I'm going to die alone. In this chair.

Maybe it's because I'm not all there, and what I'm saying is a muddled confusing mess, and I sometimes forget how to pronounce the aliens' names, I don't know. But I guess I'll just keep talking and get the story out there, maybe reach someone, help them understand. Understand what happened, who I am, where I came from.

Completely submerged, down maybe eleven floors, I clenched my fuzzy paws in anger.

Perhaps, I thought, this Sandy _is_ named Sarah, and that's why she shoved me off that ladder. I don't know. All I knew was, I was pissed, and the moment I saw her again, I was going to knock out a couple of those perfectly cloned teeth.

Moving as slow as a man in a Diver Dan suit, I made my way to the maintenance ladder, grabbing the bottommost rung.

I wasn't just going to knock out her teeth, I decided. I was going to knock her block off.


	38. Chapter 43: Jeremy

I don't know what I was thinking. I'm no storyteller. I'm not a writer. I'm just a kid trapped in an alien body.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. Maybe nobody is going to hear what I have to say, and I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for a reply. Even if this message can somehow cross miles of space to reach some person or alien with a receiver, perhaps they won't care enough to say anything.

And if they _do_ say something, who's to say that Father or the DAMBALLAH group isn't out there, jamming the signals? They could be out there, even now, working against me, making sure I feel alone, like I don't even exist.

Maybe I'll never be heard. Maybe when I'm through telling my tale, it won't even see the light of day. It'll die with me, and I won't even know if I ever had a chance of being heard.

But if I don't keep telling it, I'll never know. I guess all I can do is try, and hope.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't just go into my Mental Submarine and teleport Mr. Bloopy back up to my friends. I asked Big Bird about it, and she said something about it making the system unstable.

My robot's fur coat soaked up water like a sponge. With all the added weight, it felt like it took an eternity just to go up five feet.

As I slowly made my way up that ladder, I reflected I had a lot more objectives than merely kicking `Sarah's' ass.

Somehow, I _had_ to get Ernie's family off the space station. I don't know how I'd do it, maybe that teleportation trick, though such a thing is a lot herder to do while occupying a tiny machine body. I figured I'd have to table the problem until I got the last family member free.

Where _was_ Ernie anyway? Sure, I had a general idea, but I'd have to access the blueprints again, if she even stayed put after birthing. Wait, of course she'd stay put, with all those tentacles and shit down there. She seemed _very_ immobile. I doubted she'd be able to accompany us on our journey to...wherever it was I could find with breathable air-honestly, I was only talking it on faith that there'd _be_ a planet we all could live on, with food and ammonia and water and other necessary resources on it.

Ernie wasn't the only individual I wondered about. The Betty was floating somewhere around the station, presumably with Call and Vriess and Purvis and... _that macho tough guy_ (Johner?) on board. Were they still _out there_? Or did they dock? And how would I reunite them with Christie?

What happened to Wren? Where did _he_ go? A dangerous maniac like that certainly didn't just disappear. Lacy wasn't exactly a friend either, she was still sneaking around the ship, plotting a way to get `home' and endanger both us _and_ the human population.

And then there was Vela, probably limping around with an aching size seven butthole.

And what of Ernie's baby? How did Ripley get down the ladder with it? _Did_ she get down the ladder with it at all?

I stopped for a moment, listening for the sounds of someone, anyone calling for me.

Were they still waiting at the top of the ladder? Did they go without me?

I sighed, hoping someone waited, that someone cared.

...Nothing. I continued on.

All of a sudden, the power went out. The elevator shaft, once illuminated here and there by emergency lights and the ambient light leaking out from the various floors like snow on a dark winter night, fell into tar black darkness, one which I couldn't even see my... _robotic claw_ in front of my _beak_.

Mr. Bloop Bloop was a robot, not a cel phone. His eyes did not glow whatsoever, and there wasn't much point in making a novelty toy able to see in the dark. They would have sold the unit separately as some kind of Super Kung Fu Action Paintball Droid with camo gear or something. I still had some GPS type functionality, but now I was sort of... _fumbling_ for ladder rungs.

It reminded me of a time back home when Central Command shut off power to our `house'.

After the aliens killed my folks, my brother and I had no income.

No scavenging, no trades, no electricity. Me and my brother _may have_ been able to steal food, lie to the school and pretend like everything was okay (no one cared that much about a couple Wildcatters), but you had to jump some serious hoops to keep your utilities on. Excuses worked for the first couple weeks, _but after that.._.

Don't get me wrong, our family had _some_ money saved up, but I didn't k now how to open the safe in mom's bedroom, or know the codes to her electronic bank stuff enough to transfer funds.

I and my brother quietly suffered in the dark for three weeks. We quickly got the bright idea of stealing extension cords and siphoning power from the neighbor's HAB unit.

That only worked for two days before the owner, a big heavy set white guy with a beard, came out and yelled at us.

We almost got caught (and taken away by Family Services), but I didn't let him all the way into the unit. Instead, I just lied about us being sick with a contagious disease, and being unable to afford power. The man was unsympathetic, but seemed to believe us enough to keep distant and only demand ownership of all our extension cords.

I went to the Financial Office one time, attempting to get into my parents' bank account, but they refused to help me until one of them came to the office and cosigned.

After that, I spent a great deal of time in the school library, studying wiring and electronics. My teachers encouraged me in this extracurricular activity, not realizing that I only wanted to know enough to steal from the grid.

It took a few days, but I soon figured out how to rewire a few switch boxes to restore power to our HAB.

It only worked for a month before someone figured it out, and we had people banging on our door. Me and Timmy hid inside, pretending not to be there. I'd learned enough about wiring and engineering to make it near impossible for them to break in without blowtorches, so they just shut the power off again.

When the aliens swarmed the base, and I found a dismembered body of a utility worker in my HAB district, I tinkered with the switch boxes again. This time, the power stayed on.

As I slowly groped my way up the ladder, I remembered all those days me and Timmy sat in the dark, huddling together to keep warm when Archeron reached its winter rotation.

I climbed higher.

Frost set in around the ladder, the sides of the elevator shaft.

 _Then it started snowing._

"Big Bird!" I cried. "What the hell is going on! Is something wrong with your temperature controls?"

"Environment controls are normal," she answered. "Sensors indicate average temperature of 60 degrees in your location."

Thick layers of ice formed along the walls. "Then why am I seeing icicles?"

"Newt, I am questioning your psychological state."

 _"And I'm questioning your damn sensors!"_

"Admittedly, I am not at liberty to do an inspection..."

I remember watching an episode of _Doctor Who_ where the female time lord is stuck in the future and calling her Pakistani friend for help. The friend fills a bathtub with ice and sets something up with a generator to freeze herself for a thousand years. I don't remember the whole thing, but I think the plan worked and she saved the day. Mostly I remembered the way the girl blocked off the door and set up the equipment. In real life, doing all that to your body would probably kill you.

As the chill set in through my polyester stuffing, I kept thinking about that scene with the buckets of ice. I could swear I felt it.

A white winged shape descended from above, clutching a long icicle spear in its blue fist. Snow came down in a blizzard.

I heard screams below me, like tormented souls in hell. When I looked down, I saw them, skeletal shapes reaching out of the dark water, like spirits from the Titanic still lost in Arctic seas. They climbed the ladder after me. The expression on the winged figure, cold as the ice itself, tightened into a grimace.

The spear glowed as its fist clenched around it, somehow causing the ice buildup on the ladder to thicken.

My already damp robotic limbs slowed to a crawl and stopped on the ladder rungs. I felt frostbite creeping into my hands and feet.

A skeleton hand clamped around my fuzzy leg, dragging me down.

When I heard a panel opening, I got excited, thinking that someone from my group had came to my rescue.

"Mr. Booby Poop Poop!" someone laughed. "What are you doing down _there?_ "

I blinked. The `snow angel' was gone, the ice strangely absent. A pointy nosed face stared down at me from an open maintenance hatch.

The man had algae caked on several parts of his outfit, but other parts, his face , hair and hands, were clean. It seemed he'd found a sprayer to wash himself off a bit.

"Waiting for you to get me out of here!" I called. "What does it look like!"

My robot spouted a clip from _Bananas In Pajamas_. " _My bottom is stuck!_ "

"Bear," Bruno said. "Can you access computer? Maybe show us map for Control-Room?"

Thinking quickly, I blurted, _"I was just going there myself._ Could you get me back up that ladder?"

"How did you get here in first place?"

"Someone pushed me."

He laughed. "I have many fond memories of abusing Mr. Poopy doll. I kick him down stairs, put his head in toilet. _Someday I go to Mr. Poopy jail._ Ha ha."

"Ha ha," I groaned. By then I figured out how to disable the annoying random soundbyte system, so I didn't have to listen to an Adam Sandler quote about "Eating pieces of shit for breakfast."

Chuckling, Bruno climbed down the ladder and got me.

He frowned when he noticed how damp and heavy I was, how water poured out of me when he lifted me up. "You should not take baths, Mr. Poopy. You will ruin your materials."

"I wouldn't have bathed at all, if a certain little girl hadn't pushed me off the ladder."

Bruno grinned. " _A child after my own heart._ "

But then he scowled. "Mr. Poopy, your circuits are waterlogged. We _have_ no children onboard. Are you certain you are up to the task of locating bridge?"

I clenched my plump little fists. _"I know what I saw._ "

"You are getting _emotional,_ Poopy! I think you are malfunctioning!"

"Think what you want, _Bruno-_ " I thought about saying `Bozo' but I feared being thrown back into the water. "-But if you want to get to the bridge, I can get you to the bridge. No need to get insulting."

His eyes widened. " _How did you know my name?_ "

 _"I have access to the company database,"_ I lied. " _And facial recognition software._ "

"Ah! _Someone modded you_! Very good! Now _this explaineds everything!_ " Did I mention that English may have been Bruno's second language?

"You got that right, buddy!" And then I played a clip from _Ghostbusters 2_ : _"You worthless piece of slime! You ignorant disgusting blob! You're nothing but an unstable short-chained molecule!"_

"What's that you've got there?" I heard Claudia saying from the compartment behind him.

"It is Poopy Bear. A child's robot toy. It says it can find us bridge, but I think it has received water damage. _It...talks strangely._ Even for a mod."

He passed me back to the woman.

Claudia must have noticed me rolling my robotic eyes, for she muttered, "Oh. _That's cute. Someone's programmed this thing to get an attitude._ "

 _"It recognizes us,"_ Bruno said. _"It has facial recognition."_

She frowned. _"I see. Wonder who owns it?_ "

"Take me up the ladder," I said. "I'll show you where the bridge is."

I had no intention of showing them the bridge. What I'd show them was my Ss'sik'chtokiwij friends, and hopefully free that last imprisoned relative of Ernie's.

Luckily, neither of them made the connection between me and my furry robotic avatar, so they took my statements at face value. A couple moments later, I received a much needed lift up the elevator shaft.

The nice thing about being a big scary alien in a group of big scary aliens is that you don't worry about foes. Since our parasites had been shut off and locked away in a fiery room behind a security door, they'd left the maintenance hatch they'd used for entry slightly ajar. Even my little blonde enemy had neglected this detail.

"Are you sure this is the right way to the bridge?" Claudia asked. _"I distinctly remember a different floor number."_

I gave her a good bluff. _"Do you want to go by your own guesswork, or do you want actual directions?"_

 _"You're right, B._ _Your robot is definitely acting strange._ "

When Bruno brought me out into that corridor, I thought I'd been abandoned. I thought for certain that, in between my Ss'sik'chtokiwij blood kin becoming impatient and not accepting me as a robot, and whatever the little girl had told them, they had given up on me and moved on, maybe to a completely wrong end of the ship.

Instead, as the two humans stepped out into a T-intersection, a large black shape grabbed Bruno by the neck, shoving him into a wall. "Give me that machine," it growled.

Bruno responded with frightened blubbering, shoving me into the alien's claws.

"Don't kill him, Ruth," I said. "He might know something."

Ruth let out a low growl. "He brought you to us, when I was unable to see you in the dark." She let the man go, frowning at me. "I am still having difficulty with the concept of a Ss'sik'chtokiwij spirit being contained in a machine."

"Technically I'm still in the chair. This is just like a prosthetic limb."

 _"The...plastic thing a human wears when a piece of them is missing..."_

"Yeah. _That thing._ "

Ruth carried me down the passage.

"Where are my android's arms?" I asked.

"I set them down by the door. Ripley is waiting for you."

"Hey!" Claudia protested, reaching for me. "I'm not going-"

Mary sent the woman to the floor with a casual swing of arm.

Bruno's Adam's apple bobbed. "Xenomorphs are in control area?"

"Uh, yeah," I lied.

Mary growled angrily. "You said nothing about-"

I shushed her. "Where's everyone else? Did they find Jeremy yet?"

She shook her head. "We've just recently located the room number you mentioned. Now we're having difficulty with the security device."

My old armless android body lay rag doll next to a maintenance closet. Mary waved to me. "Newt? Are you feeling okay?"

I shook my head. "I just got shoved off a ladder and dived into ice water. I feel like a sponge. No I'm not feeling okay."

 _"That thing is Newt?"_ Claudia cried. "Oh my God, we're fucked."

 _"You think you can still help us?"_ Matt asked me. " _With all your problems?_ "

I cast him a suspicious glance, but nodded.

Bruno looked shocked to see Sarah. Claudia, though, seemed less so, but I could tell she couldn't remember anything about the girl.

It seemed Ripley was competent in figuring a few things out on her own. I found her leaning against the correct door, impatiently bouncing her weird looking super pale eyeless baby. _"About time you showed up. What were you doing down there anyway?"_

 _"Thinking about killing the brat who pushed me off that ladder,"_ I said.

The hateful midget had been listening. _"It's lying._ The thing just started playing sound recordings and jumped off the side. _I tried to catch it, but I was too late_. I think it's got a faulty circuit."

I clenched my paws. "And I think _you've_ got a faulty _brain!_ " I locked eyes with Ripley. "Why the hell would I want to jump into ice cold water and gum up my mechanisms?"

"I don't know," the woman said. _"It seems consistent with a faulty circuit._.."

"Ripley, I'm not just a program! I'm running this thing from the chair!"

That only got me a blank look. "What chair."

"Don't indulge her," said Sarah. "I'm sure she's got some crazy story about how she's uploaded her consciousness into a computer."

Fortunately, Mary had been there, so she could corroborate my story.

"Okay," the woman muttered to her. "Even if she is Newt's consciousness, maybe it's more than a malfunction. Perhaps she has brain damage. You saw what happened back at the lab. Androids don't eat human flesh."

"What are you talking about?" I shouted. "I didn't eat human flesh!"

Ripley gave me a skeptical look. "Are you telling me you don't remember sampling from those dead bodies? The ones Zeke shaped into _modern art?_ "

"The... _butter sculptures?_ " I stammered.

The woman laughed. _"Is_ that _what you thought they were? You're sicker than I thought!"_

I suddenly felt cold. _"I ate human flesh."_

 _"Told you it was malfunctioning."_ The girl gave me a grin so nasty that I wanted to punch her in the face. "It's probably not even an alien, just some glitchy computer program that thinks it's your friend."

"You shut up!" I yelled. "You don't know anything!"

"Exactly what a malfunctioning program would say, when it's convinced it's a person."

I charged at her with a scream, intending to beat the living shit out of her, but my cute and cuddly body did not lend itself to anything resembling martial arts. The moment I came close, Sarah just clotheslined me and kicked me in the stomach when I fell to the floor. _"See? It's completely haywire._ "

"I'll show you how haywire I am," I growled.

A bunch of movie quotes came up in my system, but none of them seem to be that stinging or angry enough to be worth playing. There was a clip from _Wrath of Khan_ that would get laughs instead of intimidate her, a clip from _Scarface_ that didn't fit the situation, and something from _Full Metal Jacket_ that would only insult her if she came from Texas. Even that long killer's monologue from _Taken_ didn't seem to fit.

By the time I came up with something good, I was already getting orders. "This door needs to be opened. If you're really Newt, you'll stop bickering with that little girl and help us."

Sarah gave me a nasty grin.

I responded by giving her the finger. "Let's see the lock."

In their impatience to break their relative out of imprisonment, Ssunamrozedrah and the others had ripped the palm and retinal scanner equipment out of the wall. A bunch of wires now hung from the square socket. Through a hole and a crack in the door, I could see that a pair of thick, inaccessible looking bolts had shot through the frame, accompanied by a set of interlocking gears that had a permanent appearance.

"I warned you about this," I said. "I _told you_ it's like a safe."

Ripley rolled her eyes. "Spare me the lecture. Can you open it?"

I frowned. "I think we're about to find out if a robot can get a headache."

I asked Big Bird for help.

It turns out my tiny size actually served a useful purpose. We had to remove an air filtration machine, but my Ss'sik'chtokiwij companions could actually stuff me into a duct you could barely fit a toy dog inside. As an added bonus, my damp fuzzy pelt served to give the ducts a much needed cleaning.

From time to time, I have claustrophobia nightmares, ones where I'm crawling down a tube, and it keeps getting narrower until I'm stuck, and can't get out. I awake in a cold sweat, possibly avoiding a death by sleep apnea. Crawling through that air pipe was kind of like one of those nightmares.

The duct ended abruptly at a fan. For a moment, the only possible course of action seemed to be crawling backwards and getting out of there.

When I reversed a foot, I did find a register, but it seemed awfully small, and since there's no way a mechanic could do any repairs from inside the thing, I saw no way to remove the panel, just the useless bottom ends of the fastening bolts.

I heard my Ss'sik'chtokiwij associates complaining outside. "Why's it taking so long?" They argued about other ways to break into the place.

"What the hell am I supposed to do here?" I cried. "Big Bird? Got any ideas?"

A long silence answered me.

At last she said, "I believe the automatic screwdriver you possess has a magnetic attachment."

There actually was one inside my body cavity, for the purpose of self repair. Although magnetism is deadly to many computerized devices, I guessed it had been carefully placed to avoid frying my circuits.

The "Lefty loosey righty tighty" adage doesn't help very much when you're trying to unthread from the bottom. Also, without something like a Philips slot or a horizontal depression or a bolt to hold on to, I found myself doing a lot of twisting.

Twist twist twist. Twist twist twist. Twist twist twist. Not a single damn fastener came loose, even with the magnet. The sounds of more impatient complaining traveled through the pipe to my audio receptors.

"Do you absolutely need to simulate a human being while removing those bolts?" Big Bird asked. "You are wasting your power supply."

"What do _you_ suggest!" I snapped.

"Becky, _your wrist can turn 360 degrees_."

It took me a couple minutes to figure it out, but I eventually learned to use my fat robot paw like a cake mixer. I'd compare it to a drill, but it didn't move nearly that fast.

Still, it rotated, and before I knew it, a screw or bolt dropped out of the register, and I could move to the next.

"Are you done in there?" I heard Ripley yelling at me when I dropped the second bolt.

"Almost!" I shouted back. "Keep your pants on!"

"Hurry up! The water level's rising and they're talking about eating your friends!"

"In that order?" I asked, but the humor was lost in the ventilation system.

"What?"

"Never mind," I groaned.

At last the register clattered to the floor inside the room below, and I could kind of squeeze myself through.

In terms of scale, tumbling from that vent felt like jumping off the roof of a two story building. Although my robot body could take the abuse, it still felt like a scary falling nightmare. I had to shut my eyes to avoid waking up in the chair.

Mr. Boopy's damp sponge and metal frame hit the tile floor with a wet slap.

I opened my mechanical eyes, glancing around to get my bearings.

Computers, surgical tools, medical supplies. A Ss'sik'chtokiwij in a cell...and a black metal thing that made me want to piss myself.

In fact, Big Bird informed me that my Ss'sik'chtokiwij body _actually had_ made a mess in the throne.

The metal thing resembled a skeleton, obviously a robot of some type, for its eyes glowed and it turned its head in my direction the moment I stood up.

It didn't do anything but look at me, but I still found it unsettling. It watched every move that I made.

When I asked Big Bird about it, she apparently didn't even know the thing existed, as it had been hidden within a restricted area.

Lucky for me and my companions, no vials of acid nor unbreakable penalty barriers had been employed as a safeguard against unauthorized door breaches. Once I stacked a few textbooks and computer hard drives up by the door, I merely had to plug my USB thing into a slot to unlock the mechanism and release the penalty lockout bolts. It generally _is_ easier to get out of a secured room that into it.

Ripley and the Ss'sik'chtokiwij came rushing into the room the moment the door slid open.

"Jesus," the woman complained. "Took you long enough! Could you have picked a slower robot?"

A moment after she said this, the previously motionless skeleton thing rose to its feet, firing bullets out of its hand.

Shrapnel went flying everywhere, striking Ssunamrozedrah, Zeke and Mary in the shell. Caustic blood sprayed from Ripley's stomach. There was quite a lot of acid damage being inflicted upon the floor. The blood sprayed the robot, but it emptied its ammo clip before the barrel became nonfunctional, one of the bullets causing me to lose functionality in my `cake mixer' arm.

The old man appeared again, laughing at our misfortune.

And then _the creep actually spoke to me_ , for the first time. _"You thought you were being clever, but you're exactly where I wanted you to be."_

The black skeleton grabbed Ripley by the throat, shoving her into a wall. A blade shot out of its other arm.

At the same time, gun barrels emerged from the walls inside the prisoner's cell, a second set aiming at all of us in the doorway. _"Checkmate."_

"Newt," Ripley gasped. "What is all of this? What did you do?"

"Do not move." Father's voice sounded dispassionate coming from the speakers, not at all like the cold, hateful voice invading my robotic brain. "Any aggressive motion will result in your deaths."


	39. Chapter 44: Jester at the Throne

We'd fallen straight into Father's trap. A tough robot with a knife, wall mounted guns aimed at the hostage we intended to save. More aimed at us.

The scary old man had lost his tongue again. He only gave me an evil smile, because he'd won.

Did I forget to mention Mara, my android `mother'? I did, didn't I. Guess we weren't really that close, after all.

Anyways, the android was with us, and under Father's control. She had a laser knife out, pressing it threateningly against Matt's stumpy neck.

My Ss'sik'chtokiwij associates understood English enough to know that moving would be a bad idea.

My original prison wardens, however, had other ideas.

Claudia stepped forward, arms raised. " _Father!_ Thank God! This is Agent 8170, security clearance-"

The wall guns opened fire, dropping her to her knees with crippling leg moves.

"Do not move," the emotionless voice repeated.

"We are registered scientists!" Bruno protested. "We have been taken hostages by these xenomorph aliens! We do not wish to free prisoner!"

"Your security credentials do not apply to this level. You are in violation."

Bruno laughed nervously. "Do you not understand word `hostages'?"

Father shot his legs out from under him. "Your lives are not valuable. Containment is priority."

The door slammed shut and locked. Outside the room, I heard something metal clanging down, more locks, perhaps.

 _"Threat contained."_

Claudia swore as she clutched her bleeding leg. Bruno whimpered like a little girl.

"Let me see your shirt," the woman muttered.

"Why?" the other scientist moaned. "You want to see my manly chest?"

"Shut up and give me the damn shirt."

She tore it up to make bandages, of course.

I _had_ to do something, even if it destroyed my little robot. I knew I could potentially cause someone to die, but I couldn't afford to let Father win, or else _everyone_ would die, and everything we'd accomplished would have been for nothing.

The moment I made one step toward a computer station, the guns came on.

"Daughter!" Mara shouted, rushing to me. I don't know how she managed to accomplish it, but somehow her artificial intelligence had regained control of her body.

The guns flashed, blasting the android from just about every angle, milky coolant spraying from multiple wounds.

She pressed me close to her body, shielding me from the rain of bullets. Her head exploded, her limbs shattering and breaking away.

"I love you," she whispered. And then, as her hard drive failed, she kept on saying it over and over like a broken record.

The android's power core failed, and she spoke no more.

I wasn't programmed to cry. It came out as "Unnnhhhhhhh."

The little girl, capitalizing on this costly, sacrificial distraction, rushed to a computer console, pressing buttons. The guns fired at her, but she only winced like someone had punched her and kept doing her thing.

While unscrewing the register on the air duct, I had overheard Claudia telling Bruno how Sarah was some kind of project of a different department, so the child wasn't exactly human, and had some enhancements. I could only assume her iron constitution, and her computer skills, to be one of them.

"So she's been _enhanced? Like Matt?_ " I said. "They made her bulletproof?"

"I don't know," said Bruno. "It is, how you say, ` _Above pay grade?'_ "

I sighed. "What are you doing over there, you little creep? Trying to find a new way to kill us?"

"That girl deserves a spanking," Claudia muttered.

But Bruno disagreed. "If she gets us out of here, I think she will deserve _medal."_

The little girl now stuck her fingers inside a... _socket_ or _something_ on the machine.

"What are you trying to do?" I cried. "Electrocute yourself?" I rolled my eyes. "Actually, _go ahead_. You were pissing me off anyway."

"That's not a very Christian thing to say," one of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij remarked.

"Did I ever _claim_ to be a good Christian? Besides, _I'm a friggin' kid's robot!_ " But then I noticed how Sarah didn't look any worse for wear. "Hey, _you see any lightning bolts coming out of her right now?_ _She's fine!_...Speaking of which, I _am_ the robot here. Why don't you let me be the one screwing around with the computer?"

"Security credentials accepted," Father said.

The scary old man shot me a hateful glare, then disappeared.

I stared at my paws, wondering what I had done to bypass his system. "Father, deactivate the guns."

The guns continued to point at us.

Sarah chuckled, sticking her hand deeper in the mechanism.

Whatever she did in there, it worked. The deadly weapons retracted into the walls, the skeleton robot retreating from Ripley.

"Shit," I said as I gawked at the little girl. "You _really are_ enhanced!"

She smiled, but it seemed as baleful as the one Father had given me when he'd `checked' us.

Ripley tried to snatch the knife away from the skeleton robot, but it was built into the machine. She had to melt it off.

Bruno shakily staggered to his feet, hands raised. When nothing fired at him, he limped over to the supply cabinet, searching for medical supplies.

With a look of intense concentration, Sarah turned her hand, and the weapon system inside Jeremy's cell became inactive, the door popping open.

Instead of thanking us, the captive roared and threw Bruno into a wall.

A second later, she ripped my cute fuzzy head off my plump mechanical torso.

When I awoke in the chair, I caught a sight that nearly made me piss myself again.

During the course of my mechanically assisted journey away from the body, _my old pal Ernie had joined me in the throne room._

Her large black claws paused in the middle of knitting a onesie. _"Oh my poor aunt! What have they done to you!"_

I stared at my visitor in astonishment. She looked just like that giant thing that had tried to murder me onboard the Sulaco, a big glistening queen ant body with a crown and an extra set of arms, massive tail, and part of one of those giant egg sac things. "Ernie? What are _you_ doing here?"

The creature let out soft coughing and sneezing sounds. "I'm so saddened to find you like this. Do you really hate your body so much?"

 _"It wasn't my idea,"_ I groaned. "Apparently I was needed for the stability of the system... _You got anything to eat?_ "

She shook her head. 'I detest it when you eat human carcasses."

"I never ate a human carcass," I protested.

 _"I know,"_ she agreed. _"I'd rather forget the incident myself."_

A memory came unbidden in my mind. Me, in the industrial kitchen of the prison on Fury 161, Ernie giving me this disapproving facial expression as she entered the room.

I'd found a dead prisoner on the floor. Another alien had killed him, maybe the queen alien, maybe me, I don't remember. All I remember is, I was hungry, and the other stuff I'd eaten only made me barf.

Oh, and he was a convicted felon, probably a serial killer. That kind of made me feel less guilty about it.

The man... _tasted like the butter sculpture._ Or maybe the butter sculpture I tasted, tasted like the dead man. Even now, I felt myself drooling, and I hated myself for it.

Ernie caught me in the middle of my feasting. She looked horrified, but this is coming from someone who ate my brother, and laid an egg in a human being. I indignantly replied, "What. I got hungry."

Ernie had a new daughter with her, this one she'd somehow harmlessly birthed from a human womb. I'm not sure you want to hear the details. Anyways, she seemed as dismayed as her mother. "If I am not to eat humans, then why is Newt eating one?"

"I do not know. This makes me very sad." Ernie loomed over me, shaking her head. " _Newt..._ "

I told her I didn't need to act human anymore, because Ripley had seen my new body and tried to kill me. "I'm one of you now, so this technically isn't cannibalism."

"You don't _have_ to act like one of us. Newt, you, you don't know how much this saddens me."

"But don't you see? This makes you exactly like Grandmother!"

Picturing myself. As that giant bug queen that killed everybody. I started crying. "No! I'm so confused! I just want to be a little girl!"

"It's okay, Newt. Come out of that body."

I gave her a bitter laugh, climbing out of my dinner. "I wish I could leave _mine_ this easily."

Now, immobilized in this alien throne, I thought about the story of the Dahmer Party, how they stayed put in the frozen wilderness, boiling leather and drinking the soup from it, slowly starving to death, until they came upon the terrible solution of eating other people. The shameful feeling those people had, when they ate their first bite of... _other people, the guilt of getting full on it, the associated loss of what makes a person feel human..._ I understood it more than I wanted to admit. I was so sickened with myself that I couldn't even verbalize it out loud. I just whimpered.

"When I found you eating that human, you cried and told me you hated your new body, so I held you, and told you how to resist. I promised to help you fight the cravings of your body," Ernie said. "I can help you."

 _"Yeah,"_ I said bitterly. " _And you're such an expert_. I remember how you killed that guy we found in the prison. _Went off in secret and laid an egg in his chest!_ "

"You're not being fair."

" _Life_ isn't fair. _The fact is, you're not a pro on resisting temptation._ "

"Neither is anyone in Alcoholics Anonymous!"

I swallowed, having no good response to that.

"Remember what I said. Take it day by day. Fill your stomach with nonhuman things. And when you feel the first egg lust, let me know. It is not a desire you can resist on your own."

Again that feeling of self disgust washed over me, saddened to be alive in this rapidly aging _thing_ , this _body_ , without having ever truly lived.

"Am I going to become one of those big things?" I asked. "Like you?"

Ernie sighed. "If I tell you an answer you don't like, are you going to kill yourself?"

I rubbed my face. " _It sounds like your answer is yes_...Don't worry. There's too many lives at stake for me to just end it all. I can't die just yet, as much as I want to."

I slouched a little, but couldn't move my head too far, on account of the harpoon. "I'm probably better off in this chair. It's harder for me to hurt people."

I let out a heavy sigh. "I have no life."

Ernie responded with bible verses about how Jesus gives us life.

"Cute, but that doesn't make me any less single. Or nonhuman."

"That sounds like the same Newt that asked me if it was okay to hate God."

I remembered that. On Fury 161, while Ernie's `Grandmother' was killing prisoners, I had fled to the prison chapel. The inmates had fled the area, since everyone was in a panic, so I was alone. I'd begun with prayers, but the more I prayed, the angrier I got, the more fed up I felt about the body He'd put me in, to the point where I was yelling at him. I wanted an angel to come down and say something, but of course only silence seemed to answer me.

After moping around for maybe a half hour, Ernie found where I'd been hiding. "Newt. I am glad you are unharmed."

I didn't respond. Ripley had accompanied the alien, and she looked disgusted that I even dared to keep my old name.

"You seem...troubled," Ernie said to me.

I glanced at Ripley and sighed.

"It's Grandmother, isn't it?"

"Ernie, is it okay to hate God?" I asked.

"I...believe it is okay to be _upset_ with God...hatred is more about doing evil to hurt someone."

"But that's just it, Ernie. I _want_ him to be hurt. For what He did to me. I didn't ask to be born in this body! I don't want to be here! He took me away from mommy and daddy and forced me to live with a bunch of criminals and your evil grandmother! _And you!_ " I wept.

Ernie tried to hold me, but I shied away. "God is a meanie. I hate him!"

"His will is hard to understand. It is like the joke about the five hundred pound gorilla."

"He sits wherever he wants?"

Ernie nodded. "And _does_ whatever he wants."

"Then God is mean."

"Not to our spirits."

I just sighed.

"He does what is best for us. It is not always what we want, but it is always what we or somebody else needs."

I wasn't thrilled by that statement.

"Newt, if God didn't put you in that body, you wouldn't be here right now, to convict Grandmother of her sins."

So I was put in the body of a flesh eating parasite to convince a big scary bug monster that she did wrong by killing a whole colony of human beings? _Come on!_

"Johannes Gutenburg died a poor man," Ernie said as she did more work on Sammy's onesie. "He sold his press to pay his debts. Yet everyone remembers him as the founding father of books."

I scowled at her. _"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"_

I whimpered, rubbing my face. My head itched from where I'd been harpooned, but Big Bird hadn't told me how to remove myself from the chair yet.

I sighed helplessly as I stared at my massive companion. "We found Jeremy."

Ernie clapped her claws. "Did you! Excellent! _Unfortunately, I don't know what we're going to do next..._ "

 _"We'll have a big barbecue with clowns,"_ I joked. _"It'll be great."_

The humor was lost on her. "Oh dear, _you're starving._ I definitely need to find you some food."

"No argument there," I sighed.

Ernie sniffled with emotion.

"What."

"I still see that frightened larva that rushed up to me in the prison, and nuzzled against my shell. `Hold me, Ernie, I'm scared,' you said to me."

I felt a chill run down my back as the memory flooded back. "Do you remember me as a little girl?"

Ernie purred in amusement. "Of course! _And I love you, no matter what you look like._ "

I fought back a sob.

"Do you remember what you said to me later?"

"I...I don't know," I stammered. "I've...been... _awfully confused._ What _did_ I say?"

Ernie sneezed in sadness, suppressing coughs. She choked out more chilling words:

"When you first took possession of that body, I said, `You are a Ss'sik'chtokiwij now. This makes me as sad as it makes you, but I'm still happy to see you. You are welcome to stay with me as long as you like.' And you told me, _`Then I will stay with you always.'_ "

"No!" I cried. " _You ate Timmy! You killed my brother!_ I'd _never_ say something like that to you!"

Ernie sneezed in sorrow. "Child, that was _Hissandra_. _And my daughter._ They killed your brother because I was _fasting_ and they had misguided notions about my needs. I never took a bite of that beautiful child."

All I could see was Ernie, with my dead brother in her claws, gore dripping from her face. "Get out of my sight! I don't want to see or hear from you ever again!"

"Rebecca! _Newt!_ I didn't kill him! I never wanted your brother dead!"

 _"Yeah,"_ I mocked bitterly. " _You just let other aliens murder him, and get yourself a little dinner on the side!"_ The words came out forced, they kept getting stuck in my throat, I was so angry. "Get the hell out of here!"

In my mind's eye, I could only see the alien's mouth dripping with blood, saw her swallowing, likely bits of my brother's lifeless flesh.

"Newt," Ernie whimpered. _"I love you. You wanted me to always be here for you. That's what I'm doing."_

"Oh God!" I yelled. "Will you fucking go away!"

She stayed put.

Of course, I couldn't leave the damn chair, so I just started crying.

Honestly, I _did_ remember what she was talking about. _I just didn't want to._

When I first took this new body, I came rushing through the prison complex at Fury 161, following Ernie's scent. I did this out of blind instinct, out of fear. My new body was seeking anything remotely in the category of "mommy", and she seemed to fit the bill.

Finding the alien curled up in a prison cell, I pressed myself against her exoskeleton, coughing and sneezing as I nuzzled into her. "Ernie!" I cried. "Hold me, I'm scared!"

"Who are you?" she asked.

I coughed. "It's me! _Newt!_ "

"Newt?" She didn't believe me at first. I think she must have thought of me as some unwanted daughter, sullying her reputation as a human lover. She pushed me away in fright. "I don't understand! Who are you!"

This made me cry more. "I already told you! _I'm Newt!_ _Rebecca!_ Please don't tell me you've forgotten!"

And then she broke down and coughed. "But Newt is _alive_! The Ripley woman rescued her from Grandmother and took her away on a spaceship!"

"I don't know," I told her. "Something really bad happened! Please, hold me! I'm so scared!"

And so she did. "Oh Rebecca! How can I ever forget you?"

I told Ernie how I died and everything, and that's when we had the conversation...about how I wanted her to never leave me.

Now, stuck in this chair, remembering all this, I just felt ashamed. Disgusted at myself for being so weak, so foolish. _Latching on to my brother's murderer for emotional support!_

I couldn't do a damn thing to get Ernie to go away. I gave her the finger, went on another crying jag.

"I know you're lonely. I want to provide you company." She picked up a pack of cards from the floor. "The humans taught me how to play poker. Want to try a few rounds?"

 _"No."_ I groaned.

"How about _chess?_ _I brought a chess board..._ "

If I had visible eyes to roll, she would have at least had a hint about how annoying she was. "No."

"Remember Becky from... _home?_ The _other Becky_? The large one they called Betsy Butterfingers?"

Having a vague recollection of such a woman, I gave Ernie a slight nod.

"She taught me _dance._ "

I stared as the big monster _actually gave me a ballet performance_.

I rubbed my face. To tell the truth, it was kind of amusing, I just didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing she'd cheered me up. "Please stop."

I sighed, weeping again. "Why won't you just fucking go away? Can't you understand I don't want your damn company?"

"When you were alone, as a human, you used to tolerate me. Do you remember that? You called me a... _Dementor._ "

"I never did that," I protested. "When everyone was dead, I played Harry Potter _alone._ By myself. _You weren't there._ "

Ernie whimpered. "You _were_ alone, but not completely. _I was there_ , Newt. I was watching you. _Keeping you safe_. _You may not have had human companionship, but you were never alone._ "

A knot tightened in my stomach as I thought about it. "I know what I remember. _I was alone._ "

"And I am telling you _you were not._ "

"Leave me alone, you alien bible thumper!"

"Does my fixation with scripture truly bother you, or are you addressing me thus because it makes you feel close to your dad?"

She'd heard me using that term before, when I was a human kid. I'd used it to describe this crazy Indian guy who tried to adopt me. Ernie knew I wouldn't have come up with the idea by myself.

"Oh God, _now you're psychoanalyzing me?_ What part of go fuck yourself and leave me alone do you not understand!"

 _"I know what will cheer you up..."_ Ernie padded around the throne, coming back with a large fuzzy cobalt colored stuffed animal.

"Big Blue!" I cried, and for a moment, I _was_ kinda happy.

For a moment. "Wait. Where...?"

The moment the words came out of my mouth, I noticed _Vela_ limping in. The way she walked, it looked like she'd been riding a horse for five hours.

I stared at her speechlessly.

"Newt! I have gotten _many lost times_ trying to find you! _But now I have!_ "

I frowned at the alien. "Ernie! _What the fuck?_ "

She shrugged. _"I thought you'd like a friend._ "


	40. Chapter 45: Unwanted Companions

All of the stories I've told sound like copies of copies of something somebody else wrote. I think I've done something different, but no one is going to say it is. That's just how God made things.

I was very angry when I wrote the story of what happened at Hadley's Hope. I wrote Ripley and the Space Marines as the heroes, because I wanted all the aliens that hurt my family to die horribly.

Certain things are very hard to get over. I still want to hurt the queen, wherever she is.

Now, with all those stories in my head, I kinda lose track of what the truth is. If I continued writing them the way I had them, I'd probably have Ernie's baby be some big giant skull monster thing that drips acid and punches Ernie's head clean off her shoulders. I'd have the Auriga smash down on the earth and explode, the humans and Ripley escaping the whole mess with the aliens either exploded or crushed and bleeding to death in the smashed up wreckage.

The alien that killed and ate my brother definitely _deserved_ to have its block knocked off. If I could have gotten off that throne then and there, my first act would have been to strangle her.

Especially now that she brought _Vela_ , of all people, to visit me.

"Vela isn't a friend," I said. "She's just a doctor that shoves thermometers up my ass."

Ernie placed Big Blue in my arms. "She _said_ she was your friend, and I believed her."

"That's because you're a moron. No surprise coming from an alien who thought she could _just preach_ her alien friends into not killing two hundred people!"

Ernie roared angrily at me.

"Yeah," I purred. " _That's right. Go ahead and kill me. It's the only thing you're good at._ "

The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij let out a frustrated sigh. "You're only saying all this because you're depressed and suicidal."

"No, I'm saying it because it's true."

Ernie snarled.

 _"Hey, asshole. Why so pissed? You're the one that keeps hanging around after I specifically told you to go away."_ I shot Vela a look of disdain. "The same goes for you, _gaping anus_. Gonna leave me in peace, or do you _enjoy_ bleeding from your rectal cavity?"

In response, Vela said, "You have made mess. I clean up, okay?"

"I already had an android clean me," I said.

Vela brought out one of those vacuum cleaner things the androids always used to clean the toilet in my cage, sucking up the grossness. I cried at how pathetic and helpless I'd become.

I sighed. My whole body ached from sitting straight in that chair so long. My stomach yearned to be fed.

"I'm sorry you cannot grow up to be a human adult," Ernie said. "But, as you have mentioned, you are `tough' now. No longer as frail and vulnerable as you once were."

"I don't want to be tough! I want a normal life!" I paused. "I don't believe I even said that to you. It's just like everything else you've told me. _Complete and utter bullshit_. _You've screwed with my brain_. How do I know you didn't make all those memories up?"

Ernie sighed and shook her head. "I never put anything in your mind that wasn't there before. _You were having attacks because androids removed part of your brain, so I helped you fill in the hole. That's all I did._ "

 _"With lies,"_ I growled.

"Think what you want, but the truth is, I stabilized you, I told you to fill in the missing gap with your existing memories and thoughts."

I sobbed quietly as I thought about it.

After finding myself in this alien body, I had witnessed a man cheating on his wife, making out in the prison kitchen. The sight made me so jealous and unhappy that I couldn't stop crying. "I won't be able to do anything like that anymore," I had told Ernie. "I'll never grow up and kiss anyone."

She held me as I wept. "You must be content with who you are, or you will never be happy. God makes us all different. A man should not be unhappy because he is not born with breasts, or a woman a male reproductive organ. I was born with a suaakudsi that can tear a hole in the back of a human skull. I have often wondered what it would be like to have a soft human tongue, and saliva that doesn't melt steel, but I am content with how God made me. My body is no better or worse than a soft fleshy one that receives goosepimples."

At the time, I had stared down at my little arms and said, "You're right. When I get big like you, no one will ever be able to hurt me."

 _"Yes, you will be tough_."

Now, with a machine impaling my brain, I didn't feel so damn tough. I just felt scared.

"You once enjoyed being able to scale walls, did you not?"

I frowned. Hours ago, I had to do an _American Ninja Warrior_ trick just to get out of a room, _and she said I could scale walls_? "I don't know what you're talking about."

"On Fury 161. _You scaled the prison walls._ You seemed to like it."

True, I remembered using some kind of suckers built into my body to climb the concrete walls. Her daughter had taught me how to do it. I may have laughed a little at my success. "See? Not everything about being a Ss'sik'chtokiwij is bad!" she had said.

What cheer I had gained was gone the moment she brought this to my attention.

I put the memory out of my mind. It seemed I only had bad memories these days.

Of course, doing an impression of a cocktail olive wasn't exactly a great memory either.

I fingered the stuffed toy, remembering how I used to curl up inside its cottony innards, a little warm womb where I could regress, pretend like I weren't an alien, wish myself a human birth, until my captors got scared and thought I'd escaped, taking my cotton womb away from me.

Sex is the pinnacle of human selfishness, culminating in the creation of a selfish being.

During my time at home on Archeron, I sometimes heard people going at it through our thin walls.

At two in the morning, a Mexican woman would wake me up with her moaning. And then at five A.M., she would moan again. This happened for a week or so, then the same woman was yelling at someone and crying. I guess the sex wasn't _that_ good.

Ernie caught me dipping my claws into the hole on my stuffed toy's back.

"I sewed that sleeping pouch for you," she said. "Pillow said you'd like it. Apparently you did."

I remembered how that kind goat eyed alien (the one who had taught me dancing) took Big Blue away for a time, and how it came back with the pouch. honestly, she wasn't helping, she was _enabling_. There was something masturbatory about giving a chest bursting alien an artificial rib cage to crawl inside.

Still, I...I'm ashamed to say I liked it.

Della Reese informed me that the system was stable. Our location hadn't changed, and the Betty had docked at the Auriga once more. I tried to get a camera feed of the area, but Father had blocked access to the system.

"You're not the first to trade bodies with a Ss'sik'chtokiwij," Ernie continued. " _Do you remember Sarah?_ "

 _"The little bitch pushed me off a ladder, so yeah, I kinda remember her!"_

The alien gasped. _"She's here? On this ship?"_

 _"Yeah, and she looks perfectly human to me!"_

Ernie seemed... _puzzled._ "She must be another clone. I thought my sister Hissandra destroyed them all, but it appears they retained the genetics."

"So she traded bodies with one?"

"Yes. _With me, and another."_

My jaw dropped. _"She was able to change back?"_

Ernie nodded. "At first. _Alas, you need a body to return to."_

I put a claw to my chin.

 _"You're thinking of stealing her body,_ aren't you?"

"Why the hell not? _She's a fucking clone, and she's my age!_ The little bitch needs to be taught some _manners! If she wants to be human again, let her clone her own body!_ I'm sick and tired of this shit!"

"She's a _child_ , Newt. You're denying her an _entire life!_ "

"Tough shit!" I screamed. " _I've_ been denied an entire life! _If God's not going to fix this, I will!_ "

"Newt, _that is sinful thinking_. If you love the Lord, you must not do this thing!"

"Maybe I don't..." I whimpered.

 _"Then perhaps it is best you are stuck where you are."_

I started crying again, and couldn't stop for an entire minute.

"The Lord will provide what you need, Newt," Ernie urged. "You must _trust Him_ to provide all the desires of your heart! When you seek another way, it leads only to _evil!"_

I still wanted that bitch's body, but I didn't want to prolong the argument, so I just muttered, " _Sure._ Whatever," and cried some more.

"Young one," Ernie said. "Do you remember Big Bird and Mara? From before we arrived here? You see, Big Bird is an artificial intelligence-"

 _"Those names ring a bell,"_ I said dryly. "I borrowed Bird Brain's body until your kids ripped my arms off, and _Robot Mom_ just got her brains splattered. Why?"

Ernie whimpered. "Poor Mara! _She loved me so much!_ "

"She cared for me too," I muttered. "In fact, I think she even protected me from your kind when I was human."

Big Bird appeared in front of the big alien, purring with pleasure. "Hello, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik

, my friend!"

The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij purred. "Big Bird! How nice to see you again! Have you been well?"

The yellow insect creature nodded. "I have not sufficiently thanked you for helping me understand the meaning of happiness. Your definitions of contentment and self fulfillment have been valuable in this endeavor."

"I wish _I_ could get some," I muttered. " _I_ have a thing stuck through my brain. _Pretty fucking happy right now, thank you very much._ "

Ernie rubbed her face in frustration. " _You're just a ray of sunshine, aren't you?_ "

I flipped her off.

Big Bird purred, apparently amused by our little exchange.

"Wait," I said. "If you're up here, who's running your body?"

 _"I am simulating sleep,"_ she said. "It is illogical to allocate full mental resources on a body with no working arms. My synthetic human form can run basic tasks and monitor the environment while my main consciousness operates elsewhere. It takes little effort to remotely send verbal responses to queries. I can also make it walk, if necessary."

"Is it true?" The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij asked my holographic friend. "Is Mara no more?"

Big Bird sadly bowed her head.

"But you've been shot before! It did not kill you! _You survived!"_

"Yes, but my hardware remained intact. F-" It seemed Big Bird couldn't speak ill of the master system either. " _He Who Must Not Be Named_ prepared a trap that completely obliterated Mara's identity matrix. Alas, everything that made Mara _Mara_ is no more. Her AI has been lost forever."

Ernie started crying. "She told me she was my mother! _She loved me!_ "

Big Bird attempted to hug her, but had no physical substance to do it with. "I am sorry. I wished to duplicate her, but my memory system is too limited to archive her personality in its entirety...Do you believe Mara went to heaven?"

Ernie shrugged. "I do not know. An electronic... _thing_ is not the same as a soul. Christian scholars have stated that the philosophy `I think, therefore I am' is not a biblical teaching, and may not be true in regards to the nature of the soul."

"Mara sought immortality through your God. It is disappointing to learn that her efforts were of no avail."

"What about the Velveteen Rabbit?" I asked.

Big Bird and Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik stared at me.

Big Bird processed the statement. " _A children's story, similar to Pinocchio, in which a stuffed rabbit magically acquires a non-artificial flesh body due to the affectionate abuses of a small child."_

"You're right," I groaned. "We don't have any magical blue fairies."

 _"It'd be nice,"_ Ernie whimpered.

 _"It'd be nice if I could get out of this chair,"_ I said. " _But that's not happening either._ "

Sighing, Ernie took out another item to appease me. Somehow, she'd acquired that quilt mom had sown for me back home. "Remember this?...I must have spent _hours_ on this. You always used to sleep under it, or use it as a cape..."

"Liar!" I shouted. " _Mom_ made that for me, _not you!"_

She held up the quilt, pointing to the various patches, a tiger, flags, cigarette ads..."I _found_ these bits of fabric around Hadley's Hope. I somehow doubt your mother would have had access to NASA or food service uniform patches."

 _"You took them from dead people?"_ I cried.

She sadly nodded. "Would this be an appropriate time to say that `It is the thought that counts'?"

I scowled. _"No."_

My parents kept a gun in the safe above their bed. There had been times I'd considered taking it out and shooting Ernie, but I could never figure out how to crack the combination, even when I pressed my ear to the side or used a cup like they did on TV. Even now, I still wanted that gun.

A black figure with a fishhook birthmark on her face appeared before my chair. _"So this is where you've been hiding, you selfish fuck!"_

"Me?" I growled. "Who's trying to bring their human killing ass down to earth where all the tasty soft bodied victims live?"

Lacy grabbed me around the throat. _"You take that back!"_

"Or what? _You'll kill me like you're going to kill all those people on earth?_ I'm not taking back shit!"

"Swear to God," Lacy said through her teeth. "Say one more word about that, and I'll make that thing in your brain gouge a bigger hole."

 _"Go ahead. I'm dead already_. Never liked this shit alien body of mine anyway."

Her claws tightened. "Oh, by the way, _good luck getting to earth after you do_. I'm in command of this ship, you stupid cow. Fuck up my brain and it all goes sideways."

She froze. " _You're bluffing._ "

"Am I? Go ahead and try it. _I've been wondering what my AI meant by `system destabilization!'_ "

Lacy quickly let me go. "Fuck you. If there's a hell, I hope you rot there."

 _"And I hope you join me."_

Crack! Without warning, the harpoon thing popped out of my brain, retracting into the machine, the loud hardwood clank reminding me of when you get the bonus ball on a pinball machine.

I fell from the chair, sprawling on the floor.

"Oh God!" I cried. "What the fuck?"

Lacy leaned over my prone form, cracking her knuckles.

It occurred to me that Ernie might be right. Perhaps it _had_ been best for me to be stuck where I was.


	41. Chapter 46: Xarspacal

_Did_ I love the Lord?... _I wasn't sure I even understood what love was anymore_. Not after everything that happened to me.

Honestly, I never understood `loving God.' You don't love breathing, or drinking water, you just do it. You're dependent on it for survival. And that's what I felt about God.

At any rate, as I lay sprawled on the floor, weakened and in pain, I really didn't feel like writing Him a thank you note.

Lacy gave me a swift kick to the stomach. I was armor plated, but it still didn't feel good. "Not so tough, now you're out of that chair! The ship is _fine!_ Now I know _exactly_ how full of shit you are!"

I raised my claws to block her, but I was too weak. Her fists smashed down on my skull. "You're not so perfect yourself, you fucking hypocrite! _Going to possess a little girl's body just because you don't like the one you got!"_ She kicked me again.

You're probably asking the same question. I mean, Sarah _did_ shut off the guns and helped us free Jeremy. But hell, I was questioning how much I trusted these aliens, and the little girl acted so sketchy and mean when nobody was looking. That incident at the ladder was pure spite. I thought she _deserved_ to know what that felt like. "Yeah? Don't tell me you haven't thought of doing the same damn thing yourself!... _Unless you want to_ scare _these kids you keep talking about!_ "

Lacy grabbed me by the throat, squeezing until I heard something cracking. "You shut the fuck up!"

"Or what?" I gave her a weak smile. "I touched a nerve there, didn't I?...Unless you want to be honest with yourself and just admit you're only an alien with something wrong with her brain!" Sometimes the knife that you use to cut someone the deepest is the same one that makes you bleed. Just ask any fat person.

She clawed me across the face. "Keep talking! I'll make you wish you died in that chair!"

 _"How do you know I haven't died already?"_ I challenged. "Maybe all this is a hallucination produced by my dying brain."

Lacy slammed my head against the floor. _"This feel like a hallucination, bitch?"_

"Go to hell!"

She bashed my head again. " _`Destabilize the spaceship' my ass!_ Tell you what you're going to do now: You're going back in that chair, and you're steering this... _thing_ back to earth so I can see my kids!"

 _"You and those kids!"_ I groaned. _"Who are you?"_

 _"Now_ you ask who I am? _Now?_ Fuck you. _You don't need to know_. All you need to know is that _you're getting back up into that chair, or I'm killing you."_

"Do it yourself," I growled. "I'd _love_ to see you do your impression of an hors d'oeuvre." I mimed getting speared through the head. "Boop!"

That earned me a punch to the face.

I just laughed. She would have done me a favor by killing me.

Lacy picked me up again, but before she could strike, the floor shifted at an angle, earthquake-like tremors traveling through the floors, the walls. Pieces of the ceiling dropped onto the floor, exposing the stars above.

Chunks of stone idols appeared out of nowhere, strange unearthly artifacts that looked like something out of the devil's Babylonian sculpture garden, then a Hopi dance shield, and a Pac-Man lunchbox.

The floor tilted again, and the door from a microwave oven originating from apparently nowhere, struck Ernie in the head.

By the way, not happy that she didn't lift a finger to help me. She kept staring at a glowing hole in the wall like it were something important.

The bloody ass half of an insect-reptile hybrid slapped down beside me. Parts of the ceiling burst into flame and smoked, wires dropped down with dangerous sparking ends.

"You're going to fix this!" Lacy shouted, dragging me back to the throne. "Go back in that chair!"

"No!" I tried to claw my way free, but I was too weak. " You're so hot on getting back to your precious earth, you get in that fucking chair yourself-let it knock a couple holes in _your_ brain for once!"

 _"You'd like that, cunt!_ Tell you what: _You do what I say, and I won't give you a brain infection!"_

"What, you going to tongue me to death?" I joked.

In response, she stuck a claw into my head wound.

Gray matter doesn't feel pain. It just gets screwed up, and you don't even know what the hell is happening. I lost control of my legs and peed on the floor.

 _"Oh nice."_

"Stop," I protested.

"Get in the fucking chair."

When I refused, she stuck a claw in the other wound. Suddenly everything looked like a cartoon. The chamber took on rainbow colors. An alpaca and an emu appeared at either side of the throne, anthropomorphic Big Blue at center, dressed like a Mandarin emperor, impassively regarding me with his hands in his sleeves.

"Move, douchebag!" Lacy shouted.

I just vomited, remembered a flash of a Doctor Who episode where they landed in the World Trade Center and Torin Cole threw a shapeshifter alien guy through a window.

Lacy got angry and punched me.

She was beyond pissed now. She just grabbed me under the armpits and dragged me up to the throne.

Wham. The dark glistening body that held me went sailing across the room. It seemed Ernie had decided to stop sitting like a bump and actually help me.

"I must apologize for my distraction," said the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "I... _thought I saw something._ "

"It's... _definitely weird in this place,_ " I groaned, feebly attempting to regain my footing. I was still looking at things in cartoon vision.

Ernie helped me to my feet. "I understand your suffering. I too have suffered brain damage at the hands of enemies."

Lacy got up from the floor, rushing at Ernie with a scream, but the larger alien just swung her tail, and my foe's head struck a wall.

Indifferent to the attack, Ernie continued her line of thought. "You spoke truthfully about the system becoming unstable. Like it or not, I suppose you must return to your confinement."

I grabbed the arm of the throne, forcing myself into a standing position.

I leaned over it and just started crying. "I don't want to do this again! I don't! It feels like I'm dying every time I sit in this thing! Oh God! Please, no more!"

I sniffed, glancing back at Ernie. "You actually know what this feels like? I don't believe it."

"I've had probes in my head, child. Even now, I have implants monitoring my body, tracking my location. At one point, I had them removed, one by one, to fight my sisters. I lost control of my limbs, my bowels, I saw hallucinations." By the way, when she was saying this, I was seeing her as a giant sized version of the caterpillar from _Alice in Wonderland_. The Ss'sik'chtokiwij shook her head sadly. "It comforts me to know that my sufferings at least have a purpose."

When Ernie injured her brain one time, she told me, "Your mother was fortunate. A time of great suffering will fall upon this base. Many more will die before Hadley's Hope no longer sustains life." Now, as I leaned against the throne, I mentioned this to her.

The big alien recoiled in horror. _"I did not say that!"_

"We both have parts missing from our memories."

I looked at the chair and started sobbing again.

"Please, daughter. Do not cry. You need not suffer this torture any longer."

 _That voice!_ I looked around in puzzlement. _"Mara?"_

The harpoon things on the throne slowly closed together, and in their center a holographic image of the android appeared, giving me a kindly smile. "Oh my dear daughter! I am so sorry that I worried you! I... _believe I have experienced death,_ but I am fine now."

I whimpered a little, then managed to chuckle. "You... _got better?_ "

Mara smiled. "I seem to have made progress in the arena of humor."

 _"You can actually stabilize this place? So I don't have to go back in?"_

She nodded. "I'll do anything I can to ensure you don't have to endure that pain again."

I sighed, slumped to the floor next to the throne in relief. "Thank you, Mara."

"I'm afraid our time as a family is nearing its end. I can no longer safely leave this place without damage to the system. But a mother gives sacrificially for the sake of those she loves." She glanced at Ernie. "I overheard your conversations, daughter. I can only hope that you two can reconcile your differences and live as sisters."

I wanted to argue, but she had just saved me from the chair. I decided _I had to honor her request for that reason alone_ , not because I really considered her my mom. I gave the hologram a reluctant nod. "Okay... _mom._ "

I flinched as Lacy groaned and got up from the floor.

"Stay back!" I shouted. "Leave me alone!"

The alien actually looked _puzzled_. "Okay.. _Where am I?"_

"Nice try," I told her, shoving my way past.

"I do not understand."

I said nothing, just sniffed and marched through the mouth of a rainbow striped adjoining corridor.

Ernie stepped in my path. "Where are you going?"

 _"Out."_ I tried to slip around.

She `checked' me. " _You're going after Sarah, aren't you?_ "

I refused to answer the question, ducking around her to get by.

Ernie snarled, slamming her tail down in front of me. Her large arms shoved me into a wall. _"You're not doing this to Sarah! Stop being a selfish child!"_

I raised my claws, balling them into fists. Ernie responded with her own pugilistic gestures. "Remember Robert? The man we found in that Hadley's Hope jail? _He taught me some boxing moves._ "

I swung, but the big monster just dodged out of the way. Her big fists made threatening feints and jabs in the air. "You want some of this, _payaso?_ "

I laughed. _"Oh wow! Is that you being tough? You're not even Spanish!"_

 _"I got you to smile,"_ Ernie purred.

It wasn't a game. When I tried to slip past her again, she decked me. I fell to the floor.

I turned over on my side and wept.

Sighing, Ernie leaned over me, gently stroking my weirdly shaped head. "Newt, I love you. I really don't want to hurt you, I'm just trying to protect an innocent child."

"That's just it," I whimpered. " _I don't think she's innocent. She's a brat._ "

 _"You_ were a brat once." Then she chuckled. 'You still are."

I groaned, pushing myself up into a sitting position.

"I know what it is, you're cranky because you're tired and hungry. Let me find you some food."

She wasn't wrong. Every time I looked at Vela, my mind had been doing that Porky Pig thing, changing her from a human being to a fried chicken and back again.

When Ms. Rels stupidly knelt beside me to do...whatever veterinary medicine she thought I needed, I didn't think I just grabbed her, distending my jaw next to her throat like some kind of vampire.

"Becky no!" Ernie shouted, but it was too late. My teeth were already sinking into the little woman's flesh.

Not what I expected. It felt like I were biting into a basketball. The texture wasn't right for human skin. I knew this from experience. Also, she didn't bleed. The skin didn't even break.

"You find my little secret," she giggled.

I drew back from her, just gawking, the human part of me relieved that no one got hurt, the alien part dismayed and frustrated at the mockery of food.

Vela's face stretched out, muzzle-like, until it took on the appearance of a Who from that Jim Carrey _Grinch_ movie, and a pair of insect-like mandible `tusks' slowly extended from the sides of her throat, her front incisors elongating to the size a sewer rat would envy.

 _"Sang Gott!"_ she cried. _"I geth tho tired oth holdin' sat in!"_

It made perfect sense. Vela's accent didn't sound like any accent I'd ever heard in my life, and that skin I'd tried to bite into...up close it really looked like a Caucasian colored basketball. "What the hell are you?...And don't say a Whoville Who."

 _"Xarspacal,_ " I think she said, though I'm probably wrong because the teeth made her talk funny. _Funny-er_.

 _"Guess that explains a few things._..You didn't make a very convincing human. Speaking of which, why didn't they put _you_ in a cell?"

Those long teeth garbled her speech, but I more or less understood it: "My disguise is passable. Humans really don't look at other people that much. They look, but they do not think about what their eyes see. They get busy with their electronic devices. They forget."

"Well thanks for being my chew toy. No offense, I was really hungry and wasn't thinking."

She stared at me. "Was that what sex is like for you?"

I scrunched my face in disgust. " _You can stop talking now._ "

"I am relieved that this could be resolved peacefully," Ernie said. "I thought the creature smelled funny, but I assumed it had something to do with drugs."

I balled my fists. _"So you were okay with me hanging out with a meth head. Nice."_

"Look yourself in the mirror and tell me that would truly threaten you."

Lacking a good response to that, I just scowled at her. "So where's this food you keep talking about?"

"Stay here. I will bring it to you."

I gave Lacy an uncomfortable glance, pointed my claw that way because she couldn't see my eyes. _"What about her?_ "

"I'll keep a watch on your aunt for you." She waved her tail at Lacy. "Come along. I'll show you the way back."

I still wanted to trade bodies with Sarah. Although in a weakened, feeble condition, I trailed behind the big alien, creeping up to the dimensional gate thing the moment she and Lacy vanished into it.

I only got within a foot of the pillars when I lost control of my muscles and collapsed on the floor.

Vela leaned over my prone form, toggling something on a cel phone app. "I activate your chip, okay? I do not think it is safe for you to go out. You may hurt the little girl."

Then, with an amazing show of physical strength, she grabbed me by the tail, dragging me back to the throne area.

"Don't hook me up to that chair!" I whimpered. "Please! I really wasn't going to hurt Sarah! I'll do whatever you ask! Just let go!"

She smiled, depositing me in the middle of the floor. "I do not wish to harm you, I only protect child, okay?"

Vela swiped left on the app, and I regained the use of my limbs.

I groaned, rolling on my side. " _You got a weird definition of not harming me._ "

With brazen indifference to what I personally thought about it, Vela laid down right next to me, snuggling against my exoskeleton.

"Vela, what-"

Her front teeth shortened, and she kissed me right on the mouth.

I pushed the "Xarspacal" away from me. "I don't know what you think you're doing, Vela, but trust me, you don't want this. You really don't."

She grinned. " _How do you know what I do or do not want?_ " Her strangely textured hands caressed my chest plating. " _We are both so very_ lonely..."

 _"Look, I don't even know what this is!_ I'm classified as a female _because I lay eggs_ , and you're female because you have _breasts_. Already we're kinda on the wrong page!"

Her hand slid around my bony armored hips. " _Are you absolutely certain of that? You haven't ever seen me naked._ "

I swallowed. "Okay, fair point...but the question I got to pose to you is, do you really want an alien larva to come bursting out of your chest? _Because that's kinda how it works._ "

"You...do not have a way to... _unproductively experience pleasure?"_

I shook my head. "Not without killing someone."

With a frown, Vela just put an arm around me, resting her chin on my shoulder plate.

We slept like that.

The squeaking wheels of a cart awakened me. Someone was reading Lord Byron's poem about the village smithy and his brawny thick-as-iron arms.

"You two are _so_ adorable!" I heard Ernie remarking as he approached.

Kind of an odd thing to say, considering how suggestively Vela had wrapped herself around me, with her lips pressed up against my neck.

I groaned, trying to rub my eyes before realizing that my eyes were beneath armor and I couldn't actually rub them.

Ernie had brought me a cart full of groceries, more or less, a pile of uncooked semi-thawed frozen meat, eggs, boxes of White Castle hamburgers, Totinos Pizza Rolls, an actual pizza, KFC frozen dinners...I got up and stuffed my face. I didn't even mind the raw meat. I've actually eaten it before with little digestive upset.

I bit into a calzone. It was frozen, but the acids in my mouth warmed it to an acceptable temperature. "Ernie, I...have something to confess."

The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij's head centered itself within my field of vision as she let out a deep sigh. _"Who did you kill?"_

"Nobody!" I stammered. "I..."

If I blushed, I can only assume that Ernie couldn't see me doing it, for she didn't say anything. "I...think I did something ...lesbian."

Ernie's head turned sideways like a puzzled dog.

"I know that's not right," I continued. "I mean, in the bible, it says..."

"How can you do anything lesbian?" she asked. _"You don't have the parts for that."_

I scratched my head. "Oh."

This made the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij break out in purring laughter.

She _could_ see me _shrink_ in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. It's just..." She made a burping frog croak noise, apparently the equivalent to that cough people do when they're trying to change a subject. "You're going to be vulnerable as long as you have those holes in your head. How do you feel about a little _brain surgery_ when you're done eating?"


	42. Chapter 47: Shadow Puppets

_"Brain...surgery?"_ I nervously stammered.

Ernie gave me a nod. "Perhaps I made it sound worse than I meant. I should have described it as _cosmetic skull repair._ "

The big xenomorph had picked up some interesting pieces of metal, machine parts, giant commemorative coins, a piece of ore from someone's rock collection. "As you can see, I've grown a little too large to fit through most doorways. Vela was nice enough to help me find these things. I hope they will do the trick."

I stared. _"What are we doing with these?"_

"I've had... _practice_ with this. You see, if you place a piece of metal over your wound, and use another bit of metal as _solder_ , you know, _by drooling on it_ , you can make yourself a nice little patch."

"God," I muttered. "You make it sound like _Martha Stewart Does Brain Surgery_."

"You shouldn't use God's name in vain," Ernie scolded. "Now, what's nice about us working together is that I can make your patches look pretty." She pointed to a set of ugly scars on her own head. " _Unlike these._..What would you like? _Maybe a nice butterfly or a cross?_ "

 _"And you've done this before,"_ I said in a skeptical tone. _"To yourself."_

She nodded. "I know what to do, and what not to do. I've made enough mistakes to know how to do things right."

"You're not exactly making me feel confident."

Ernie growled. "You want those holes in your head protected or not?"

"All right. Don't get artsy, just cover the damn holes."

"Lay down, please."

"Wait. Could you at least... _disinfect the items first?_ "

She acted like the thought had never occurred to her. Vela, however, _did_ have some cleaning agents.

It turned out she still made mistakes, which I will get to in a moment.

I laid down and she cleaned and carefully laid some oversized `silver' buffalo coin over one of my brain holes, salivating on a hard drive enclosure. The liquified metal dripped on my shell, around the wound. That probably wouldn't have felt good to a human, but since aliens have acid blood and such, it didn't bother me.

What did bother me was how the quote-unquote `solder' dripped into my brain when I tried to get up too suddenly. _I started seeing things. Real bad._

Ernie's feet had turned into scaly claws. I saw a rattlesnake slithering across the floor, and there were _voices_ , invisible people having elaborate conversations with indistinct words I couldn't catch.

I saw shadow men standing around me. Timmy looked sad. My arms spasmed involuntarily.

A bunch of mice scampered out of the walls and sang some song from the _Little Nemo_ cartoon:

 _"You're entering a world of fun and laughter_

 _You're entering a world of happy dreams,_

 _Where nothing ever is exactly_

 _What it seems..."_

I didn't know I had stopped breathing until she was giving me mouth to mouth.

The scaly green face of an Iguanadon loomed in my field of vision, speaking in Ernie's voice. "I'm sorry. Leg of leprechaun au gratin. The camel wore a nightie in that party of special things to do."

I stared. She now looked like a dragon with rattlesnake scales. "What?"

"I said don't move. I should have warned you before something shit your mind cactus."

"My brain is hurty," I whimpered. "I not thinky very bacon sandwich."

The dragon's claws stroked my exoskeleton. "I'm sorry. I wish Pillow were here. These pretzels are making me thirsty. Medical skills."

"What?" I groaned.

"She's a medical doctor from the planet Pathilon. She treated my injuries. Alas, I am not quite so skilled."

I remembered Pillow's kindly humanoid guinea pig face smiling at me when she visited me in my cell on earth, her tail curling behind her Sylvester and Tweety Bird hospital scrubs. She fed me pieces of bacon as a snack, read me religious books, and _The Chronicles of Narnia_ because I told her I liked _Harry Potter_. Her goat-like eyes always looked so sad. "Did she ever escape from that military base they took us to?"

Ernie purred. "Yes. I imagine she's better off than we are. _She was on that ship that brought me here._ We were trying to rescue you, but something happened and their ship flew away. She probably went home to Pathilon."

"So she just flew off without us? _That's awfully inconsiderate._ "

The big alien waved dismissively. "I'm sure she had her reasons. _She would have gotten caught._ _Her and her crew._ We knew this would be a dangerous mission the moment we made the attempt."

"Can you call her back?"

The rattlesnake dragon shook its head. "I wouldn't know how. Their vehicle has an _unusual communication system_."

The metal cooled and I could turn over. Ernie still looked like a weird version of Smaug from _The Hobbit_ , rather than an alien. I wasn't sure my brain would ever recover.

As usual, Vela proved to be generally unhelpful until the worst possible moment. She'd only been _watching_ us up to this point, but right after I had already suffered brain damage, she knelt beside me and said, "Are you certain you should let her do this? There is _portable device_ to seal injury. I could get, okay?"

 _"Gee, now you tell me!"_ I cried.

"I will go get device."

"I think we've got it," I groaned. I paused, briefly reconsidered. "Wait."

One glance at Lacy changed my mind. I didn't trust that bitch as far as I could throw her. "On second thought, _we're halfway done_. _I would have been fine._ I just fucked it up by moving."

This time I _didn't_ move. I let Ernie create the patch, let the metal cool on my head. In fact, I was so scared of a repeat performance that she had to actually _tell me_ it was okay to get up.

Now it was _my turn_ to play surgeon.

I leaned over her, examining her head.

The big alien flopped backwards on the strangely textured floor in front of the throne, the psychedelic distortions of my injured brain making her look like a relaxed Mrs. Smaug begging dog-like for a belly rub. A scaly claw pointed to probes sticking out of her horned head. Hallucinations made the probes look like that teeny dragon transformation bracelet that kid wore in a _Narnia_ movie.

I stared at the devices, glanced back at Vela. "Actually, maybe you _should_ go back and get that... _portable device_ you were talking about. We might need it to safely get these things out."

"Why?" she asked. " _I put them in. They are just fine where they are._ "

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

Ernie growled in annoyance, clawing at a probe, which, to my mind, looked like a cartoon diamond from Scrooge McDuck's bank vault. "Help me with this."

I assisted Ernie in wiggling the thing loose from her brain, probably damaging a whole hell of a lot of important parts because it wasn't meant to ever be removed. To my eyes, or eye-like things, the object still looked like a McDuck Diamond, and when we had loosened it a little, I saw the orange-yellow inchworm thing from Sesame Street wrapped around the base. That was probably brain tissue, a sign that I shouldn't be the one doing the operation.

Hawkeye Pierce from MASH could drink five martinis in The Swamp and successfully pull of a coronary bypass a second later. Where was _he_ when I needed him? "Um...Ernie? I... _kinda think I'm not...in the right state to perform this kind of surgery_."

 _"Would you prefer if I do it myself?"_

I sighed in frustration."Right now you look like Puff the Magic Dragon, you got a cartoon diamond in your head, and your brains are made of orange felt and have a smiley face. _If you die, it's kinda going to be your fault._ "

 _I actually heard her whimpering. "If I do it myself_ , it's suicide."

I resignedly honored her request, helping her draw out the `diamond.' Her brain smiled and talked to me, but I tried to ignore it.

Together we clawed and pried at the `diamond', which bled music notes and colored string as it came out.

Vela tried to stop us, but Ernie's tail threw her into a wall with the kinds of noises powered up characters make in Disney's _Gummi Bears_. She bounced off like a rubber ball, hit the floor, bounced again and flipped over, landing on her face.

Alien brains have _muscles_. She somehow _flexed_ the tissue, helping the probe out of her own skull. Once the needle-like thing on the end came out, she rolled on her side, readying herself for a patch.

"Stay still," I said. "You know how hard this is going to be."

The moment I picked up the materials, I heard Vela saying, "Wait. I go get medical machine. You wait, okay?" She was gone before I could give my consent.

"For someone who had just tried to stop you from pulling those things out, she's being surprisingly helpful," I muttered. "I guess we should wait for her. I mean, you're big enough to take on anyone who tries to fuck with your brain."

"Do humans really do that?" Ernie asked. "Attempt copulation with-"

I groaned. "No. Let's get your other probe while we're waiting for Doctor Rubbermaid to get back."

"Is your brain working any better?"

I could only shrug. My hallucinations seemed to have dimmed a little, but everything still had an illusionary `skin' to it. Ernie's massive bug body looked like it had been encased in a translucent dragon shaped dry cleaning bag, her brain probe encapsulated by what appeared to be Green Lantern energy.

Worse, I still wasn't right. I nearly threw up into her brain when I hallucinated maggots inside the wound.

And then Ernie started talking to me in my mother's voice. _"Rebecca Ann Jorden! Did you watch my movie?"_

I swallowed, guilt feelings washing over me.

When I was a human girl, mom left _Magic Mike 10_ queued up in her video system. What I saw made strange things happen in my body. I lied to mom about watching it. I _still_ felt guilt about that, even now. "No, mom. I...I didn't."

"Honey, don't lie. It's okay. _You're growing up, and you're curious about things."_

"I know, but I thought it was a sin to look at pornography."

"Sweetie, you're not human anymore. You can let that go."

Ernie purred, stroking my face with her claw. It reminded me of mom. "Have you been crawling around in those vents again?"

I fought down a sob. "No, mom. I've been trapped in a cage for... _forever._ "

"I shouldn't have discouraged you. If you hadn't been such a tunnel rat, you wouldn't have survived at all. I'm proud of you."

I couldn't help but smile. "Mom..."

 _"You saved a lot of lives, you know that?"_

"No, mom." I said. "Everyone died. I didn't save anything."

"It's okay, sweetie. I missed you so much. I thought I'd never see you again, but here you are." She stroked my head. _"It's so strange to see you like this_. I scarcely recognize you. You're almost taller than a person."

 _"You're not yourself either..._ Mom..." I was fighting back sobs now. "Mom, how is this possible?"

"I don't know, sweetie, _but we're together now._ That's what's really important, isn't it, honey?"

Sobbing, I gave her a nod.

All of a sudden, she stopped talking, and her massive head flopped sideways, drool pouring out of her mouth.

"Mom!" I shouted. "Mom! Please say something!"

"You like this little reunion, Rebecca? _I can make it permanent._ "

I turned. A labcoated figure now stood beside the throne, palm outstretched, an arcane symbol shaped from molten gold etched into the skin. An eye opened in its center.

 _"Wren?"_ I cried. "How the fuck did you get here? _And what's up with that hand?_ "

 _"Did you always talk that way around your mother? She's listening, you know!"_

I suddenly felt cold,the initial joy I once felt departing from me. " I don't know what kind of devil magic this is, but you can take it and get the hell out of here."

The man looked _amused_. "This isn't magic, Rebecca. _This is science._ Mr. Clarke once said that anything looks like magic if the technology gets advanced enough."

I laughed. _"So the spirit realm is a technology now?"_

"Oh, but you mock! _I found proof of its existence,_ and _a way to cross its borders_... _You want your mother to stay, or return to the other place?"_

I was too speechless to answer. A whole minute passed before I managed, "Why would you help me at all?"

He spread his arms wide. " _You did some real nice work for me!_ Saved the xenomorphs, _and_ the research station from getting obliterated ( _I started the program to begin with, you know!)._ I probably would have tried to leave on that little piece of junk your human pals got parked in the docking bay. Might have even had a violent confrontation with them as I tried to escape, but all of that proved to be unnecessary thanks to you. _I figure you deserve something in return..._ Just think. _You and your mother can be a family again. You always thought of the big one as your mom. Now it_ can _be your mom._ Just say the word."

"But I saw her in heaven! " I protested.

 _"And I brought her down."_

For a moment I was tempted, but then I thought about what something like that would mean. "No. I can't. It wouldn't be fair to her. _She's in heaven!_ "

" _And how do you know she's there?_ For that matter, how are you so certain that what you saw was real? _How do you know that wasn't just a hallucination caused by your dying brain?"_

 _"Hallucinations!"_ I yelled. _"And how do I know...what you're doing is genuine, and not just a bunch of your demonic shadow puppets putting on a show?"_

"If they are demons, young lady, you are merely an extraterrestrial with mental problems." Wren caused a pair of dark figures to appear. "These things, these `shadows,' as you call them, _are actually beings from another dimension, a dimension, I believe, is the afterlife itself."_

 _"You believe,"_ I scoffed. " _That doesn't sound very scientific to me._ "

 _"I have more evidence than you think!_ With the aid of the gold obelisks, I have observed a shadow escape from a dead man's body and travel into a portal. A shade, possibly from a different man, returned from it a few minutes later, and the subject awakened, briefly, with an altogether different personality. _They swapped souls._ "

 _"Or he got possessed,"_ I muttered. "I'm not sure I want to know how the victim died."

 _"You have consumed human flesh,"_ the man pointed out.

I stared. _"How do you know so much about me?"_

Wren gave me a look that said `Isn't it obvious?' "In addition to having access to all of your files, I have a special connection to the entities from this other dimension. Their depth of knowledge appears to be limitless...Sorry about that brain surgery we did to your human child body, by the way. I didn't want to give the order, I really didn't. But when you saw me doing my soul transference procedures on xenomorphs, which involved, how would we say, _some legally questionable practices_ , I couldn't afford to let you tell anyone at the base, or say anything that would get people like your parents too curious about what we did in the DAMBALLAH project."

I saw a flash of a dead body. " _Murder_ , you mean. _You were killing people._ "

Wren shrugged. " _I didn't have a better way of doing it._ As far as your operation is concerned, we were very careful with what we removed from your brain. That computer simulation told you to focus on what you saw me doing, and my androids removed that part of your brain that remembered. The interconnecting pathways? Well, those _were_ a little problematic to fix. Would have done more to erase the memory to get you back to normal if I had more time."

"You son of a bitch!" I shrieked. "I hope you burn in hell for this shit!" I tensed my body, clenching my claws. "I've been making it a point not to hurt human beings, but for your ass, I'm making an exception!"

I leaped at him, claws spread for the kill.

Wren only had to reach into his pocket, and I was on the floor, convulsing, foaming at the mouth.

"Oops! Probably should have pulled a couple things out before you started pouring those ugly brain hole covers." Wren clicked something, and I was back to normal. "Ready to be civilized again?"

"Fuck you," I growled. "I hope you get stomach cancer and die."

 _"I'll take that as a yes."_

"So _this_ was what it was all about? Putting your shadow creatures into aliens?"

"Not entirely."

I gritted my teeth. "You know what, fuck you and your satanic parlor tricks! I don't want any part of what you're selling!"

 _"Rebecca..."_ the man said.

"Don't call me by that name! You're not my friend!"

"Fine. _Newt._..We don't have to fight. _I'm sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement,_ one where we will both come out winners. _So you don't want to reunite with your mother just yet. That's fine._ How about this, then? I know from your case history that you hate that alien body you've been imprisoned in. What if I were to tell you that I could arrange for a _replacement body_ for you to inhabit? _Raising the dead isn't my only power, young lady_..."

I swallowed. If he could really do that for me, it would be a dream come true. "How? Where would you get this... _body?_ " Of course, coming from him, there _had_ to be something wrong with it.

"Remember _Pillow_ , that _alien friend_ of yours that deserted you? Well, _she_ had a friend who just so happened to lay an _egg_ that's currently in our possession."

"Ippi," Ernie gasped. "The mother's name is Ippi."

"Yes, well, that name doesn't mean anything to _you_ , now, does it, Newt?"

I frowned, shook my head.

 _"So!_ The baby is not completely human, more like fifty fifty, but it's not a xenomorph. Would you like it?"

I thought about it for a moment. "An... _egg._ "

"Yes. You would have a fresh start as an _infant_. _Get back that lost childhood you always bemoan._ "

"Don't do it," Ernie groaned. "That child deserves to have their own life."

"Are you going to listen to _that thing_?" Wren asked. " _Or are you going to regain your life?_ The point is, you don't know this `Ippi' person, or her child. _Does it really matter what we do to her egg?_ _It's not like it's human!_ "

For a moment, I froze, not knowing how to respond.

I sighed. " _And all I have to do is let that machine brain fuck me again._ "

He nodded. _"I'll make it worth your while."_

Noting my hesitation, he added, "If you're not comfortable with the egg, _I can find you others._ Once you open up the barrier, and I touch it with my power, you can have any new body you want."

I considered it. I really, really did. But in the end, I just didn't trust him, didn't believe he'd let me out of that damn chair when I got back in. Not after what he told me about my unnecessary brain surgery. " _Sorry._ That sounds great, but I don't make deals with Satan. I've watched enough movies to know you probably won't come out a _`winner,'_ as you say."

"Fine," he grumbled. "You don't like the carrot, so I'll have to give you the stick." Wren pulled a little box out of his pocket. "Regardless, you _are_ going to cooperate with me, or I'll have you doing the Saint Vitus' dance again."

I frowned. "What the hell do you want."

"Get back in that chair."

I gave him the finger.

A second later, I was drooling on the floor. "It wasn't a request. It was an order."

"Fuck you," I growled as I got back up. " _You'll have to kill me._ "

He jolted me, and I fell on top of the quilt Ernie had sewn for me, my face pressed against the little cloth squares. The scent, the weird topography, the ugly stitchwork, it all brought back memories that I didn't want to think about, like that one night in my hiding place at Hadley's Hope, when I woke up to find the alien quietly chewing on a dead body, the corpse of the man who kidnapped me and my brother.

I wondered, who was the greater monster, the flesh eating alien or the pedophile Ernie was eating drumsticks from?...I kinda wished she was eating Wren right about now.

During my imprisonment on earth, that quilt was sometimes my only companion. The memories did not set well.

One of the patches came from a lunch lady from my school. _I'd lied to the woman_. She felt so sorry for me and my brother that she didn't ever charge us for meals.

Another came from that big chested Family Services lady that came by our Hab. I'd lied to her about my parents being too sick to talk. We stole clothing, cleaned ourselves up, went to school so they didn't take us to some foster home.

When I was human, Ernie sometimes would lift me up so I could crawl into the ventilation ducts. I'd wear the quilt like a cape, getting it all dusty and dirty. We seldom washed it, because the threadwork was bad.

Wren pushed the button. My body spasmed. "Get. In. The chair."

Ernie rose from the floor, attempting to help, but the man had put a device in her brain too, one I either hadn't removed or couldn't reach. The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij thrashed violently on the floor.

Lacy tried to attack him from behind, but she'd gotten one of those implants too.

 _"Now. Where were we."_

I wrung my fists. "My android friend has control of the system. If you want something done, _ask her._ "

"You've absorbed a shard, Ms. Jorden. There are things you can do that your electronic friend cannot."

"I got patches on my skull!" I yelled. "If I sit down on that thing, it's going to pop my brain like a pimple!"

 _"Then take them out. Now."_

"It's not that easy, you shit! I've got solder stuck to my brain tissue!"

Wren gave me another jolt with the device, dropping me to the floor.

I started crying. "No! I don't want to go back! Please don't make me go back! There's got to be a better way!"

 _"Take the patches out, Becky. I won't ask you again."_

Sobbing, I staggered to the throne, leaning on the armrests. "Please, _mom, Mara_. You've got to help me! I don't want those things in my brain again!"

Mara looked sad, but kindly. "Take my hands, dear child."

"I...why? You don't have any substance."

"Please, sweetie. Just do as I say."

I reached out for her, and when I did, my claws glowed...and somehow I could actually grab her hands.

The hologram gave me a hug, then something happened, and I was falling through the air in a different part of the ship.

I splashed down in a green algae filled reservoir, flailing my limbs as I struggled to stay afloat, to get somewhere where I wasn't going to drown.

Okay, so maybe I swam through a cafeteria earlier, but there I could see the bottom and water still freaked me out, especially when I got randomly dropped into it all of a sudden.

The liquid pressed against my brain patches, but didn't get in. I could see a catwalk above me, but no ladder with which to reach it, and, from my vantage point, the sides of the tank appeared to be so far away from me that they might as well have been on another planet.

We didn't have pools back home. The first real time I swam was on board the space station Sulaco after it crashed into the ocean of Fury 161. I wasn't very good at it. In fact, as Ernie swam through the ship, I rode on her back, and any sudden movement made me feel like I were about to slide off into the water. When the water deepened, she eventually set me up on a bulkhead and left me there until she came back from exploring the wreck.

I just sat there in that upside-down metal cavern, watching the islands of furniture drifting by, dangling wires sparking from the ceiling.

As I recovered from my initial panic, and I began to tread water, I was struck by the irony of the whole situation. I'd dropped Bruno and Claudia into this very same tank.

I nearly panicked again when the reservoir got hit by the world's largest cannonball dive.

I stared in horror as Ernie sunk into the green liquid, struggling to keep afloat as algae choked water seeped right through her skull wounds and into her brain.

The green goop must have done a considerable amount of damage, for the moment it seeped in, Ernie's whole body seized up, and she thrashed and gurgled uncontrollably, sinking to the bottom.

All at once, the emotions I felt for the big alien struck me. She _was_ like a mother to me, I _did_ love her, and I _didn't_ want her to die.

I dove down, attempting to help, but it was difficult to see anything in that swampy pea soup.

Her massive flailing limbs struck and clawed at me when I got near. By the time she allowed me to get close, she'd already touched bottom, and lost half the fight. Nonverbally, she seemed to be saying, `I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.'

I grabbed her, tried to drag her to the surface, but she was too damn heavy.

Worse, the algae was still affecting her brain, making her strike out at me.

She stopped moving.

I let out a sob, returning to the surface. There was nothing more I could do.

I mean, I could look for a rope or a winch or something to pull her out, but she'd be dead by the time I got anything accomplished.

Still crying, I dog paddled to the side of the tank, nearly drowning myself by the time I found the ladder out.

I climbed. Once up top, I laid on the platform for a full minute, just catching my breath.

The processing machines were going nuts. All those impurities in the system, the displaced water, didn't go unnoticed, especially that big fucking alien impurity at the bottom of the tank. A machine switched on, pumping in chemicals to correct the problem. Another device activated a siphon of some type.

Unsure I wanted to be present while Ernie's big fat body clogged up the whole works and exploded, I got up, rushing down a catwalk.

The walkway ended at a hydroponics station. I guess they had it as a backup in case something like a giant alien sized clog appeared in their algae system.

I took a look through the doorway. The place looked wonderful, lots of food bearing plants and oxygen producing trees. The little robots tending the place were like something out of _Silent Running_ , little stumpy things with built in sprayers and pruning attachments.

A goat suddenly bleated in front of me. When I reached out to pet it, I found it dead, blood pooling around its body, intestines scattered across the dirt, a dark shape standing over it with bloody claws.

I looked up, trembled when I recognized the face.

The goat and alien disappeared the moment I understood what I was looking at. It had been a memory, brought to life by a malfunction in my damaged brain.

It wasn't the image that bothered me. That goat had been mutilated years ago.

It was the alien who killed it that made me recoil in horror.

Something had just snapped in place.

Ssunamrozedrah killed my brother!

The same alien that had grabbed me and dragged me through the sewer systems beneath Hadley's Hope, nearly drowning me. The same one I'd seen bringing my dead brother to Ernie with bloody dripping claws. One time she dragged me through the base's machine shop. I nearly would have gotten eaten if Ernie hadn't saved me.

I wasn't scared, I was furious.

I turned around and marched down the catwalk.

I tried to scent where the other Ss'sik'chtokiwij were, but they didn't appear to be anywhere close. I called to Big Bird and Mara for help.

I didn't know who responded, since they didn't speak verbally, but the lights flickered, Mara, Big Bird or maybe Father directing me in the appropriate direction. I was so angry at Ssunamrozedrah that I didn't care, I just followed the lights.

What happened after that is a complete blank. All I know is that I found myself again in the company of the other aliens.

The moment I saw Ssunamrozedrah, I roared, shoving her into a wall. "You bitch! _You're going to pay for what you did!_ "

"You don't want this, Newt," Ssunamrozedrah growled. "Trust me. I've had battle training with the best Yaotja _Nemsugu_. In one quick move, I can and will yank your brains out of your skull by your tongue."

 _"Yeah?"_ I challenged. "Well, before I die, I _guarantee_ I'm going to fuck you up, maybe rip your damn arm out of your socket and beat you to death with it!"

I slugged her in the stomach, snarling in har face. "Bet it made you feel _really big_ , didn't it? _Murdering a poor defenseless little human child!_ " I grabbed her around the throat. "He was the only family I had left, and you took him away from me, you no good piece of shit!"

Ssunamrozedrah hit me with an uppercut, smashed a fist into the side of my face. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I suggest you calm down this instant or I'll send you to meet him!"

I clawed her across the face.

In a flash,Ssunamrozedrah dropped me to the floor, beating me into unconsciousness.


	43. Chapter 48: Vengeance

The moment I regained consciousness, I found a pair of claws clamping around my throat, threatening to send me back under - for good. "Explain to me this outburst, or so help me, I _will_ tear out your brain by your lying tongue!"

 _"Lying!"_ I cried. " _Who's the one feigning ignorance?_ You just want me to tell you, so you can _act shocked, and make yourself look good in front of your alien buddies!_ "

The claws tightened. _"And you...just want an excuse to kill_ Ss'sik'chtokiwij _!"_

I grabbed her throat. "No, _I only want to kill you!_ You're going to _pay_ for killing Timmy, _even if we have to go down together!"_

"Listen, Newt, Becky, whatever it is you wish to call yourself..." Ssunamrozedrah snarled. "I don't know anything about your so-called `brother' or his death! I have allowed you to live now because I thought we could discuss this in a sane, rational manner. _But it seems you have lost that ability. Perhaps you never had it!"_

"Don't kill him," said her armless kin. "It would upset Ernie."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Ssunamrozedrah struck me in the face. "Explain yourself!"

When I didn't, she hit me again. "What is the meaning of this! How do you know it was even me who supposedly killed your brother? _Do you not know that I rescued children?_ "

 _"Guilty conscience!"_ I spat, punching _her_ in the face.

I rolled her over on her back, kneeling on her chest as I squeezed her throat. "You want an explanation, you piece of shit? I was a _little girl_ on a _rock_ called _LV 426_ , and this _alien_ with an _ugly black speckled face just like yours slaughtered my fucking brother and brought him to your buddy Ernie like a little snack!_ "

Ssunamrozedrah had her claws on my throat, but they let go the moment she comprehended what I just said. Her jaw distended in surprise. " _Mother!_ "

I backed away. " _That...was your...mother._ "

Ssunamrozedrah sighed. " _So that's what this is about_. Mother died back on that planet." She visibly shuddered. "In fact, I've heard there _had been_ a little girl present at the time of her death." But then she gave me a nasty smile. "Of course, _if you_ truly were _that little girl, you would have remembered a small detail like that."_

I frowned at her as the memories slowly coalesced.

The queen, Ernie's grandmother, loomed in the darkness of an egg filled chamber. The igniter of Ripley's flame thrower cast feeble light into the shadows.

A dark shape emerged from beside the giant insect's hulking form, a sleek black face, speckled just like Ssunamrozedrah's.

Ripley whirled around to face it, blasting its head to bits with a machine gun.

"Sidjendo!" the big monster had cried. "That murderous bitch!"

I understood what the monster said because I'd heard Ernie and her friends talking in the language, and one time their friend `Maria' (also an alien) tutored me. Of course I was too scared shitless at the time to inform my new parental guardian about the information, even if it _had_ been useful.

The satisfaction I felt about the incident back then seemed... _hollow,_ especially now, when I had lost everything. As I stared at my dead enemy's daughter, I still wanted to drive the knife further in, and wiggle it around. _"You know what?"_ I said through clenched teeth. " _I'm happy Ripley killed your mom!_ If she were alive right now, I'd be blowing that bitch's brains out myself!"

Ssunamrozedrah was growling and drooling like a rabid animal. It seemed I had struck a nerve. _"And I'm happy my mother killed your brother!"_

Now we were _fighting like dogs_ , snarling and clawing at each other.

 _"Enough!"_

With a surprising amount of strength, Ripley came between us, breaking up the fight.

She'd given her eyeless baby to Zeke to hold, so she could safely use both arms.

Ssunamrozedrah, not too happy about the interruption, struck the woman with a backhand. " _You!_ I heard _rumors_ about you being responsible for my mother's death, but I hadn't believed it!"

Ripley brushed herself off, gave me a look that that seemed to say `I helped you once, are you going to help me?' But something had just snapped in my brain.

I clenched my fists. "You're no friend to me either. _You deserve whatever you get._ "

"You just admitted there are _holes in your memory_ , and _you're accusing me_ of something now?"

A second later, Ssunamrozedrah had her by the throat, shoving her into a bulkhead.

I gestured to my body. _"You hated me the moment I turned into this."_

And so I watched impassively as the young woman got beaten.

Ripley had freaked out the first time she'd seen me in my current form.

After her escape pod crash landed, the inmates from Fury 161 brought her to the prison hospital, and I and Ernie just so happened to be present when she awoke in one of the wards.

The doctor explained what happened and everything.

"What about the other survivors? There was a _man_ and a _little girl_!"

"I'm sorry," the man said. _"The others didn't make it."_

And that's when I, in the body of a little alien larva, came scampering up to her and stupidly saying, "I'm still here, Ripley! I died, but I came back in a different body!"

She jumped out of her bed and shrieked, "Oh my God! What are those _things_ doing here!"

"It's me, Ripley!" I cried. "Newt!"

"You are not Newt!" she growled, grabbing a folding chair. She was naked, but I heard that she once fought the alien queen in her underwear.

Ernie tried to calm her down. "Do not be alarmed, Ms. Ripley. It's only me. _Ernie._ " She held me up for her to see. "And this is Newt. She does not eat humans."

 _"You again!"_ She threatened Ernie with the chair. "You stay away from me! _Both of you!_ "

Ernie looked at me sadly. "Come. We are not welcome here."

I sniffled, but, you know, I still had hope that maybe, just maybe, Ripley would have a change of heart sometime and accept me. We left that place, allowing her to calm down.

 _She didn't_.

Especially when she went down to the morgue and found the chest cavity of my old body all ripped open.

"No..." she sobbed, cradling my corpse to her chest. "No no no!"

The doctor stood nearby, watching the scene rather dispassionately. "I've never seen anything like this before. What would cause a chest cavity to rupture outwards like that?"

She laid my body back down on the slab, glaring at the man. "It's an _alien parasite_. They impregnate the host with an egg, and it gestates into flesh eating larva."

Ripley and the doctor slowly turned their heads, staring at me with suspicion.

The woman grabbed a scalpel, threatening Ernie with it. "It was you! You climbed aboard the Sulaco while everyone was asleep and did _this!_ " She jabbed the scalpel in the direction of my body, then turned it on him.

Ernie argued that he couldn't have possibly done it, but she didn't believe her.

"Ripley, please don't hurt Ernie," I told the woman. "I'm still alive. I'm just in a different body. I'm still Newt! _You've gotta believe me!_ "

She only scowled at Ernie. "Did you train it to say that?"

"No. She's really Newt. She somehow transferred her consciousness..."

"Bullshit!" the woman raised the scalpel. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't drive this through your shiny head!"

"Because you might burn your hand with the acid, and ruin a perfectly good scalpel." Ernie sighed. "Also, it would _hurt me a lot_ , if that means anything to you."

The woman dropped the scalpel on the floor, breaking into tears.

The doctor comforted her. I tried to do the same, you know, tell her everything was all right, but it wasn't.

"Newt, no!" Ernie scolded. "She doesn't want to talk to you!"

If something is important enough, I'll get obsessed with a thing, and not give it up, no matter what anyone says. "She's my friend! I _have_ to try!"

And so I foolishly rushed up to the woman. "Ripley! Don't be sad! _I'm still here!_ "

The woman didn't answer.

"I know it's not the same, but _can we at least be friends? Kind of like we used to?"_

Ellen snatched a pair of forceps out of the doctor's surgical apron, brandishing it at me with tears in her eyes. I thought for sure she'd break down and give me a hug, but she only yelled, "You stay away from me!"

I only crept closer, like a big stupid dummy head. "Ripley! Please don't hurt me! I love you!"

"You can't love anybody!" The woman spat. "You're just a bloodthirsty _insect baby_ about to grow into a creature that lives only to _rape_ and _kill_ and _destroy_ everything and everyone that I care about, and you have the _gall_ to pretend to be my dead child! _You make me sick_!"

She might as well have slapped me across the face and beaten me. Overwhelmed with heartbreak, I ran crying from the room.

I still stupidly thought she needed time to recover, you know, from seeing me dead on a slab and all, and maybe, just maybe, she'd `get over it' and accept me as her daughter again. It turns out she loved my dead body more than me.

The prison was once a factory. They made things out of molten lead. Even after the business folded, the prisoners kept the thing going, probably to keep the place heated. This is where Ripley took my corpse, to give it a funeral.

It was a nice funeral, but scary. I mean, _seeing my body going down into that scalding lead_? Any hope I had of getting back in a human body, it was all gone. If anything could show me how permanently fucked I was, _that_ was it.

I _had_ to get Ripley to trust me. I _needed_ her to love me like before. I couldn't stand another moment of being alone like this, hated, mistreated, rejected for who I was.

I cautiously approached her, heart (or maybe hearts) pounding in my throat. "Ripley, I'm really sorry I, I mean, _Rebecca_ had to die."

The woman paled. "How do you know that name!"

I opened my mouth to answer, but she only glared at Ernie and said, " _You told her_ , didn't you?"

Ernie didn't speak right away, making her think the response was yes.

I kept pushing, though. _I just couldn't let it go._ "Anyway, I didn't want... _her_ to die." I looked down at my claws, reflecting how much I hated them, how much I hated this body. "I didn't want this thing exploding out of her chest. _It just happened._ I wish I could have just stayed in my old body, with you. _I don't want_ to be like this!"

Ellen's hands clenched into fists. _"You killed my little girl!"_

"No!" I cried. _"That's not what I'm saying!"_

"That's exactly what you're saying!" She screamed. "You said it yourself! _You exploded from her chest_! You're a _soulless monster_ that destroyed an innocent child, and now you're under an _insane delusion_ that you're somehow her. But you're _not her! You will never be her!"_

She picked up a pipe wrench. "You want to be Newt? How about I knock you into the damn molten lead with the _real one?_ "

The prisoners just stepped back, looking like they'd be happy if I got dunked in the molten lead.

Maybe I would have been happy too.

Ernie tried to get in between us, but she only brandished the wrench at her. "Stay back! This is between me and the killer of my child!"

"Ripley, don't hurt me!" I cried. "I'm your friend!"

"You're no one's friend!" She growled, hitting me like a baseball.

I flew off the side of the observation deck, my small hook shaped claws narrowly preventing me from a nasty fall into the smelting vat. "Ernie! Help!"

"Newt!"

Ernie to my aid, but Ripley was already swinging at me with the wrench.

Luckily, I had learned to use my tail to propel myself like a rocket, so I managed to shoot my way over her head, returning to the platform.

I bravely stayed in one spot, hoping that my lack of aggressiveness and welcoming arms would cause a change of heart. _My heart,_ however, was already breaking. "Please, Ripley!" I sobbed. "Don't hurt me! I love you!"

"You don't deserve to live!" Ripley yelled. "You're just a flesh eating space maggot!"

She raised the wrench to strike me, but Ernie blocked the attack.

"Out of my way!" Ripley barked.

She shook her head. "I can't let you hurt Newt."

The woman's face reddened like the molten lead. "That _thing_ is not Newt! Newt is _dead_ , and that fucking tube worm just admitted responsibility!"

Ernie stepped between her and me. _"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."_

 _"Shut up and move aside! I can and will go through you if necessary!"_

Ernie refused to budge, so she struck her in the face.

Ernie did not resist her.

When she came back with another strike, Ernie blocked it again. No counterattack.

The woman continued to strike her.

At last, Ernie shoved her to the deck, removing the weapon from her hands. "You need to go. The child you once knew is no more, and I'm not going to let you harm my friend for the sake of petty revenge."

The woman only tried to grab the wrench.

Ernie stomped on it, giving her a threatening hiss. "Go!"

This prompted a glare. "This isn't over."

With that, the woman stomped away.

Ernie rubbed my exoskeleton. "I'm sorry."

Still thinking I could repair the relationship, I sniffed and said, "It's okay. _She's just sad._ Sometimes my dad would get drunk and hit me, but he still loved me, and we'd later do fun things together. I think Ripley still loves me too." I paused. " _She called me her child._ _The old me_ , anyway."

"She _was_ willing to kill you, to avenge you."

"So she still loves me."

" _In a way_. But the concept of a Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a human soul is a difficult thing for _anyone_ to accept."

Maybe it was. A beating was my only reward for trying harder.

Ripley and the prison inmates were hunting down an alien, more than likely one of Ernie's relatives, maybe the grandmother. I'm not sure, the memory is foggy. What I _do_ remember is that a lot of people died, and the guys were all standing around in a room full of highly combustible fuel barrels, trying to decide who would be the leader now that the people in charge got their heads ripped open.

Dillon, this African American prisoner, was suggesting that Ripley take over leadership. "This woman knows more about _space organisms_ than anyone else in this whole prison," he said. "This woman's actually seen _battles._ "

Thinking I'd be doing her a favor by speaking up, I rushed forward and said, "That's right! _When I was human,_ s _he rescued me from the big alien queen!"_

And then I scurried up the woman's leg. "Ripley, I know you still love me. Can't you just look past my outside and see the little girl from Hadley's Hope? _I'm still here!_ Please say we can at least be friends!"

She only her gaze, kicking me into a wall.

With a cold, merciless expression, she picked me up, squeezing my carapace in her fist. "Listen, you little flesh eating parasite! You are _not_ that little dead girl, and you are _not_ my friend! You will _never_ be my friend, and if you so much as _touch_ me again, I'm going to _stick you into one of those fuel barrels and drop in a match. You got me!"_

I coughed and sneezed in sorrow. " _Yes, Ripley._ "

Not understanding my alien emotional outbursts, she dropped me quickly, wiping her hands on her pants. "You had better pray to _God_ that that isn't contagious!"

"It's not," I sniffed. " _I think you've already found a cure for loving and friendship!_ "

You can imagine why I didn't feel sorry when she found _herself_ about to bear alien larva.

Using the medical scanner from her escape pod, she discovered a _strange growth_ inside her chest cavity. A little adjustment of the picture, and me and Ernie saw the baby, a little Ss'sik'chtokiwij with its small dainty claws, plump body, long wiggling tail.

 _That's what you get, you meanie,_ I thought as I watched the woman weeping before the monitor.

Ernie, finding the scans as cute as a baby under a sonogram, smiled and placed her claw to the screen. " _Awww..._ "

Ripley gave her a murderous look, waving a spanner threateningly at her head. " _You!_ You did this to me!"

Ernie tried to explain how he couldn't have done it, but it was a hard sell.

I nearly did a happy dance when I saw the woman weeping again. "It serves you right! Maybe once that Ss'sik'chtokiwij bursts from _your_ chest, and _you_ have this body, you'll know how badly you treated the friend you almost died trying to save!"

She gave me the finger.

Things eventually got so bad that I stopped being sorry for her at all, and actually asked Ernie to kill her.

Near the end of our conflict on that Fury prison planet, Ripley and her jailbird friends found guns, forcing me, Ernie and the other alien into a big lead mold, you know, so they could exterminate our species once and for all.

I suggested to Ernie and the other alien that we just climb up the wall and start slaughtering people. _"They're going to kill_ us!"

Ernie just shook her head and said no.

"You think we can get Ripley to come down here, and pour that scalding hot stuff on _her head?_ "

"You don't really want that, do you, Newt?"

"I don't know," I whimpered. _"I'm just sad!"_

So, yeah, maybe I had some feelings in there for her somewhere, but hey, _the bitch needed to be taught a lesson_.

I would have enjoyed the fight, had it not been interrupted by _side issues_.

"Where's mother?" Jeremy asked me.

I hadn't bothered to mention that little detail, as I'd had other things on my mind. In retrospect, I probably could have used it to distract my opponent, and beat her with a little less injury to myself, the psychological equivalent of a stomach-crotch combo or kicking sand into someone's face. As it stands, it came out a little cold and blunt, not because I particularly hated Jeremy, per se, but simply because Ssunamrozedrah was within earshot. "She's dead. She fell into the algae, got her brain infected, and drowned."

As an afterthought, I added, "I'm sorry."

Ssunamrozedrah let go of Ripley, staring at me. Well, as far as I can tell from a blank canvas of chitin.

Still wishing to drive the knife in deeper, I sarcastically told my enemy's daughter, _"Oh, I'm sorry. Were the two of you close?"_

This time when Ssunamrozedrah knocked me to the floor, Ripley didn't intervene.

Sarah leaned over me, giving her usual evil grin.

"What's so funny, you little sh-"

Ssunamrozedrah interrupted me, and my teeth, in mid sentence with her fists.

Okay, _so I know when I'm beat._ Revenge is never fun when your enemy keeps _unfairly_ getting in hits, giving you more and more reasons to get revenge, never letting you get any yourself.

Plus that little girl was pissing me off.

Like a dog, I laid flat on my back, arms spread in surrender. "Okay! _Uncle! Uncle!"_ And when she didn't understand that English expression, "I surrender!"

Ssunamrozedrah frowned, letting me go.

I slowly stood up, claws raised. She didn't touch me. " _I'm cool. We're all cool. I'm done fighting._ Let's get on to... _figuring out how to get everyone off this boat._ " It was a good lie.

Ssunamrozedrah looked calm enough, so I dropped my guard, took a few relaxed breaths, eying Sarah.

Without warning, Ssunamrozedrah hit me in the face with a snap punch. _"Now we're done."_

All the alien blood rushed to my face, but I kept my anger in. At the moment my energies were focused on _Sarah_ , who kept grinning at my misfortune.

The moment Ssunamrozedrah looked least ready to strike, I grabbed that little shit like a football and ran down a hallway.

 _If I couldn't get a full pound of flesh, no one was going to stop me from taking the economy package!_

Sarah screamed, kicked and clawed at me as I carried her away from the group, but I didn't care, I only saw red. "Listen, you little bitch! You're not fooling anyone, so why don't you shut the hell up and _take_ what's coming to you!"

She _actually seemed to find humor in this_. _"You wouldn't hurt a little kid, would you?"_

"I'll hurt whoever the damn hell I please!"

As I dragged the brat down a secluded hallway, I saw Timmy frowning at me, giving me this face that said, `I thought you were better than this,' but I just pulled the girl around a corner, you know, _to escape the notice of my_ Ss'sik'chtokiwij _friends_. " _Someone's got to stick up for you, Timmy, and if I don't, no one else will!"_

I grabbed Sarah by the throat, shoving her into a wall.

The girl whimpered.

"Not so bold now that you're by yourself, are you, you little whore?"

It seemed someone had followed me. "Becky, don't do this."

I glanced to the side and saw Alex Cord. White suit, glasses with one dark lens to indicate the missing eye, ridiculously bushy mustache.

"Don't you want to go back to heaven again? _See your mom and dad?_ "

 _"I'm not there, am I?_ You put me in an alien's body, _and I've had to deal with a lot of shit all by myself,_ such as being impaled through the fucking brain, _so excuse me if I occasionally let off a little steam!"_

 _"This is not a loving Christian thing to do, Becky. You and I both know that._ Jesus _doesn't want you to do this thing."_

Sarah grinned at me, wiggling out of my grasp. I tripped her with my tail and tackled her to the floor.

"Your mother would be ashamed of you, Becky," Archangel urged.

 _"Go away."_

 _"The Father didn't give you a second chance just to beat up little kids!"_

Sarah kept trying to get away from me.

Up until this point, she'd been rather subdued with her vocalizations, silently mocking me, but upon craning her neck and seeing _our friends_ coming up the corridor, she screamed at the top of her lungs to get their attention.

 _"Archangel, you bastard!"_ I growled. "You don't care about me, you were just setting me up for a beat down!"

I punched the little girl in the face, and a second time because _it felt good to hit something_ , and I wanted to get in a few more good shots before the cavalry came and mopped the floor with me.

Not as satisfying as I had originally thought.

Although blood trickled out of the little girl's nose, and the corners of her mouth when I hit her a third time, it did nothing to wipe that smug cat eating shit expression off her face.

She didn't cry, or even appear to be in pain.

And then a bunch of tapeworms exploded from her face.

Sarah laughed and laughed and laughed.


	44. Chapter 49: Family Strife

Like any good spawn of hell or cancer, Sarah hid her tapeworm infestation from the rest of the group, acting all innocent when Ssunamrozedrah rushed up and beat the living shit out of me.

And then she laughed at me again.

"You'd fought against Lacy for behaving just like you are doing now," Mary said. "Maybe we should have made her our ally instead of you!"

"Go to hell," I snarled.

When Ssunamrozedrah was through with me, I lay on the floor and cried. She probably thought I'd learned my lesson, but I was really just crying because I couldn't win.

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed me by the throat, yelling in my face. "Are we done now!"

"No," I whimpered. "But you've proven that I'm not strong enough to kill you yet."

She punched me in the face. "I am not my mother! Your brother's death was not my doing! What have I done to you!"

 _"You're alive!"_ I spat. _"Your mother doesn't deserve to have family!"_

Ssunamrozedrah struck me some more. "I could do this all day. Give me a reason why I shouldn't just beat you to death."

I laughed bitterly. _"Makes you feel good, doesn't it? Letting your family get away with murder just because you're bigger and stronger than me?"_

In that moment I discovered that aliens _could_ get bruises _and_ welts.

Sarah pressed her hand to a security panel on a nearby room, and worms shot out, entering the cracks and crevices around the box. The door beeped and slid open like she'd entered a code.

So _that's_ how she disabled Father's security system! I thought.

I pointed a claw her way, but my abuser only snarled, "Yeah. _Like I'm going to fall for_ that!"

I couldn't hurt Ssunamrozedrah with my claws, but I was bound and determined to stick any emotional knife I could into the alien and keep twisting it around. _"Might equals right, huh, you murdering bitch!"_ I kept repeating. _"Might equals right! Even when it's not!"_

She beat me every time I said it, but I _enjoyed_ hitting that nerve.

Sarah came out of the room, cooly sipping a protein shake, with a rabbit in her arms.

A _rabbit punch_ to my skull shifted my focus elsewhere. "I still fail to understand, why, if you are so upset about your brother's death, you attempt to murder an innocent human child!"

"She is not a child," I said. " _She's got worms_. She didn't even feel my fists. _She laughed!_ "

On cue, Sarah put on a show. _"She's lying!_ It _hurt so bad_ when she hit me! I...think...I think she broke something!" _And then the waterworks came on._

 _"Save it for the Academy Awards, you lying sack of shit!"_

To Ssunamrozedrah I said, " _Those are crocodile tears!"_

In response, Ssunamrozedrah beat me even worse.

I could feel my teeth cracking. I practically sobbed out my next insult. _"Oh, that's right! You're too fucking stupid to know what a damn crocodile is!"_

For my troubles, I got another fist to the face. Sarah grinned.

"Stop!" a voice yelled.

We both turned to look.

When I saw the green behemoth crouching in the corridor, I thought I was hallucinating dragons again, but upon closer examination I noticed the exoskeleton. The weird coloration had come from algae.

"Ernie?" I whimpered.

"I barely have one foot in the grave, and you two start treating each other like I never existed! Ssunamrozedrah! You ought to be ashamed! _Beating your own blood relative, your aunt, nearly to death!_ "

Ssunamrozedrah opened her mouth to protest, probably to say that I had it coming, or I deserved it, but Ernie wasn't finished. _"And you,_ Becky! What is wrong with you If your mother and father were alive right now, _what would they say about you beating a child!"_

They'd probably understand that I take my aggression out on things that can't fight back, because I'm not strong enough to beat up the things that hurt me.

Honestly, I couldn't believe Ernie was still alive. It felt like God had just sent me another ghost to slap me in the face and piss me off. And the slap hurt. _"She was making fun of me! She's not even human! She's got worms!"_

"She's making up stories," the girl sobbed. _"Becky punched my face and broke my nose! It hurts!"_

Ernie's jaw dropped when she got a good look at the girl. _"Sarah? Is that really you?"_

She gawked at her for a few moments, then frowned. "I once knew two of your kind, and a third, older one bore me a daughter. I have always found you to be good friends."

Her face turned toward me and frowned. "How could you attack something so sweet and innocent? _Did you forget that you too were like this once?_ "

She _didn't look_ too much like a ghost, especially with all that glop she kept dripping on the floor.

I let out a heavy sigh. "She was smiling at my misfortune."

Ernie looked sad. "Even if that's true, _have you thought about how humans enjoyed Christ's torture on the cross?"_

I stared at the floor. "No, ma'am."

 _"How does abusing that child make you any better than the one that killed your brother?"_

"It doesn't," I muttered in a barely audible tone.

"Killing Hissandra's daughter will not bring him back."

 _"I know,_ " I croaked, too ashamed to admit anything out loud.

"You helped my family to escape imprisonment. _You freed their bodies from the possession of evil spirits. Did you do that just to murder them?"_

Sarah looked _almost gleeful_ when she chimed in. _"That's exactly what she did!"_

Ernie growled at _me_. " _Tell me she's wrong. Tell me you didn't free my kindred just to murder them._ "

My voice got smaller. "No ma'am. I didn't."

The big alien seemed real enough to me now, but I still wasn't sure. _My brain had done some pretty freaky things lately_. "Is that really you? Are you... _really alive?_ "

She purred, giving me a nod. " _I thought I was done for too, but I found a thing to climb on, and my kindred helped me up._ It would have been nice if you'd been there."

"Sorry. I thought you were a lost cause."

"I can survive a long time with little or no oxygen. _Grandmother actually survived being dropped into the vacuum of space."_

"She's just like me," Ripley said. "Everyone thought I drowned a few hours ago because I had a facehugger grappling me underwater, but in actuality, I could hold my breath longer than that... _It's a real shame about Christie..._ "

I shook my head. "Don't be. He's still alive."

Ripley stared at me. _"Really?"_

"Really. He was kinda sick the last I saw him, but he was all right. We actually need to go back and pick him up some time. Of course he's scared of us. I don't think he'll trust anyone but his crew to pick him up." I crossed my arms, frowning at the woman. "No offense, but I have difficulty imagining you and the others pulling Ernie out of _the thing_. You'd think, with all that weight, _she'd be more likely to pull you guys in_."

Ernie purred. "It's okay. Our species doesn't have an opposite sex to impress, so I do not care if you comment on my weight."

 _"I figured out the winch,"_ Ripley said. _"It made things a little easier, even though it ended up breaking near the end._ "

"I didn't see a winch."

"Well, be glad we did. I think you two _needed_ a referee."

"A mind focused on vengeance doesn't have the room or imagination for problem solving, nor improving one's condition. The only thing it knows is the best way to kill. And in that way, Newt, you are no better than the Ss'sik'chtokiwij you wish to cause suffering upon."

 _"You're right,"_ I said. _"I_ would _rather see her suffer. Make her wish she had never been born!"_

"But don't you see? Not only are you wasting creative energy on bringing agony on a creature that did nothing to you, _you're letting an enemy have power over you!_ "

I started crying. She came over and gave me a hug.

"What, no hug for me?" Ssunamrozedrah asked indignantly.

Ernie gestured for her to come close, and she brought us both together beneath her arms. It actually felt... _nice_. I found myself crying.

The big alien glanced around the corridor. "So I am looking at _all_ my living children and relations?"

"Yes," Ssunamrozedrah said. "The one named Lacy betrayed us. Your other daughters, alas, have died in battle. All that remains now is to find a place with sufficient food and resources to dwell for the rest of our lives."

 _"The Lord will provide."_

Now that I had calmed down somewhat, I looked around and noticed some of our companions had disappeared. "Where's Bruno and Claudia?"

Jeremy shrugged. "I don't know. They ran away while we weren't looking."

"I bet they're hanging out with Lacy or something."

I noticed my team had also abandoned the android body, I suppose because it stopped working, or Mara told them she had no use for it. Either that, or they got tired of carrying the pieces.

Ssunamrozedrah pointed a claw at Ripley. "Is it true that human killed mother?"

Ernie let out a sad noise. "No. This one is something called a `clone.' If you smell her, you will recognize the Ss'sik'chtokiwij scent. The woman who killed your mother died in a gunfight."

"Wait!" I protested. "That's not what happened! Ripley didn't die in a gunfight! She lowered herself into a vat of molten lead! _I saw it!_ "

Michael Weyland's people had just rushed into the colony at Fury 161, armed with assault rifles. The inmates took offense at this, tried to drive them away, but the soldiers opened fire.

Morse, one of the prisoners occupied a lead dumper suspended from the ceiling. The soldiers tried to shoot at him, threaten him to come down, but he ignored them.

Ripley, catching on to what was happening, hobbled toward the nearest connecting catwalk.

She had an alien larva in her chest. She was going to get rid of it, one way or another.

Weyland, who had been stabbed during the scuffle with the inmates, ripped a piece off his shirt, knotting it around his wounded arm. "Ripley! Where are you going?"

The woman limped through a security gate. "None of your damned business!" She pulled the gate shut, locking it behind her. _"The bitch killed my child, I'm going to kill one of hers!_

Ripley clutched the links of the fence, a look of desperation clear on her face as she fixed her eyes on me. "Do me a favor, Ernie. Do what you're best at. Kill Weyland."

"What," the alien said. "Am I your personal mercenary? _Weyland's trying to help us!"_

"Fuck you, and fuck your grandmother!" Her fists turned white from clenching the links so tightly. "I hope you burn in the lower pits of hell, right next to your alien friends and your soulless benefactor!"

She gave the control station an anxious glance.

Weyland rushed to the gate, looking at the woman pleadingly. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm taking this larva where your men will never get to it."

"Ripley, what is this going to achieve? _We already have a queen and her offspring._ Let me freeze you and remove that larva before it's too late!"

"What, so you can take it and use it for your military projects? Go to hell!" Then, with a bitter edge to her voice, "You think you've won, Weyland, but those xenomorphs are going to kill you."

She turned her back to him, marching down the catwalk.

A yard down, she bumped into Ernie's grandmother, the queen.

"Get out of my way," Ripley growled.

"The man wants to help," the big bug alien said. "He can remove the larva."

"No. _He lies."_

"You should not do this thing," said the queen. "Suicide is wrong."

"Shut up!" the woman yelled. "You have no right to tell me what to do! You took _Newt_ and _Hicks_ and the rest of my team, and everyone I knew from the Nostromo. I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of taking me too. You took my child, I'm taking yours!"

"Ellen!" I cried from behind the fence, but what else could I say? She was going to die anyway, from that chest burster.

I mean, I kinda wanted her to live, and experience the same thing I went through, but honestly I just wanted what was best for her.

Blind with rage and hatred, Ripley grabbed hold of the queen's stumpy tail, threw it over the catwalk railing, then tried to swing on it, you know, to drag the alien into the molten lead.

The queen growled angrily, picking the woman up by the scruff of her neck. It was a mild throw, but she hurled Ripley so forcefully against the catwalk that the woman writhed in pain.

"Please don't do that," the queen said.

Having nothing to lose, Ripley sprang to her feet, slamming her fist into the queen's face.

The queen didn't feel it, prompting Ripley to punch her several more times.

Ernie's grandma got so frustrated that she grabbed the woman's hands and shoved her backwards onto the deck. "I'm sorry."

When Ripley stood up, she was crying.

The queen could have obstructed Ripley's path, but when the woman dove forward again, I think she was expecting another haymaker. Instead, Ripley just pushed past the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij like she were merely a saloon door.

"Stop!" Weyland cried. "We don't have any need for this!"

Ripley didn't answer. She just waved to Morse, so she could climb aboard the pouring machine.

"Ripley! Think of all we could learn from it!"

"You can learn from Ernie. You could _use_ a few lessons from the Good Book."

I know this doesn't make sense, but, dammit, I _know_ this is how it went!

I remember the man yelling, "These are damaged goods! You're carrying a _queen_! I need that larva!"

"Tough! You may have stopped me from killing the others, _but the bitch's baby dies with me_!"

I could only watch as Ripley instructed Morse to position the pouring machine above the main lead vat.

I could have rushed over there and tried to stop her, but it hadn't worked so well for the queen, and I was only a little tiny larva that Ripley could just kick around.

The machine stopped. The woman opened the security gate on the side of the platform, stepping onto a ledge.

With her back to the glowing red-orange pool below, she leaned back, taking a graceful reverse swan dive off the end.

"No!" Weyland screamed as the woman fell through the air.

During Ripley's descent, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij baby emerged from her chest cavity with a screech.

Ripley's hand clamped down around the larva's shell as she mouthed something to it.

Then she gave me the finger.

The larva's mind worms emerged, penetrating Ripley's nostrils.

The woman's back stiffened, her eyes widening in shock.

The bubbling sea of superheated ore swallowed both woman and Ss'sik'chtokiwij. I wept into Ernie's shell.

 _It still makes me sad._ Why couldn't she have lived to become one of those old people that sit around in a retirement home telling people about the war?

Weyland took us aliens into a ship. My memory's a little foggy about the particulars, but I do remember I was still weeping for Ripley in the man's shipboard laboratory. "Why did she have to kill herself for?" I sobbed. "They could have saved her!"

"There might be a way to bring Ripley back," the man had told me. "I'm not going to promise anything yet, but I think there _might be a way_."

"Why would she do that?" Ernie asked me after I gave the abridged version of what you just read. "There were other Ss'sik'chtokiwij around. Her death would have accomplished nothing."

Okay, so my mind is screwed up, and I don't remember things right, but I still swear that's what happened. "I don't know, _maybe it was out of spite?_ "

"She wouldn't have done something like that. She would have gone down fighting."

I sighed. _"It seemed so real!"_

"I don't remember any of that," Ripley said. " _I woke up in a tank..._ Regardless of how I died, how are we going to get out of here?"

 _"We could take a spaceship,"_ I suggested.

"No. We can't. The humans took all the pods."

"What about the Betty? _I heard it's docked here._ "

 _"Will there be room for me?"_ Ernie asked.

I frowned. "I...don't know."

 _"Claudia said when you were in...that chair, you managed to move this entire station. Are you able to do that again?"_

I'm not sure how she figured that one out, as I'd dropped her into the algae before I moved us. But, I suppose, _the ship_ had _exterior cameras..._ "Don't ever ask me to do that again!" I screamed. "I'm never harpooning my brain, I don't care what you say, I'm not doing it! I'd rather live here until we run out of air and supplies and die from starvation! _Nothing_ , I repeat, _nothing_ is worth doing that over again!"

Ripley sighed. _"How did you get out in the first place?"_

"Mara took my place. She...put her consciousness into the machine somehow."

"So we'll go up there and ask her to move the station again."

"It's not that easy. Mr. Wren's up there. He's the reason why me and Ernie got sent down here in the first place. He was trying to threaten me back into the chair."

"We've got to get back up there. It's the only way we can stop this guy."

"We have a small army now. He's just one man."

"Yeah, but he has a _device!_ We've all got chips in our brains. One false move and he'll have us on the floor in convulsions."

"Then we sneak in and shoot him before he can use this...device." Ssunamrozedrah growled.

"And where will we get these magical weapons, pray tell?"

 _"I know a place,"_ Ripley muttered. "Unfortunately, it's on the other end of the ship."

"Why didn't you tell us about this before?"

"It's difficult to reach, and I was having a _baby. I kinda had a lot on my mind._ We _did_ find a workaround, didn't we?... _At least earlier?_ "

I sighed. "So _where is_ this place with the guns?"

 _"That's another reason why I didn't mention it."_

A yellow holographic bird-alien appeared in front of us. "Perhaps I can be of some assistance."

 _"How nice of you to show up,"_ I groaned. "But since you're here anyway..."

And so our weird little team went on a long hike through the space station.

Sarah let the rabbit hop off down a random corridor. It seemed... _sick_. Frankly, I had better things to do than worry about a damn bunny, especially since the girl had chosen it as a pet. I wished the thing the best of luck, pressing onward.

Big bodied Ernie had a little difficulty following us through the tunnels, but she was able to squish herself in when it got a little narrow. "Newt, remember when you tried to hunt down that larva that killed your parents?"

I frowned. "No?"

 _"I stopped you before you could get your revenge. You weren't strong enough."_

As if I needed to be more depressed! "Gee. Thanks...You should have just let it finish the job. I would have been happier."

 _"Happier dead?"_

I spun around to face her. _"I saw my parents in heaven! Yes, I'd be fucking happier!"_

Ernie only sighed and said, "I'm sorry."

A severed rabbit's head, supported by what appeared to be wiggling angel hair pasta, darted around Ruth, disappearing up Sarah's pant leg. Nobody but me seemed to notice it.

I frowned at the nasty holes in the alien's skull. "Are you all right? That algae can't have been very good for your brain."

"I've experienced worse damage to my `gray matter'. For all intents and purposes, I should be dead. I suppose us aliens have tougher bodies...I see you haven't forgotten your brother. Do you still _talk_ to Timmy like you used to?"

I sighed. " _Kind of_. He doesn't talk back. I just... _see him._ "

"I remember, after he died, how you pretended to be a wizard and talked to him a lot."

It was a lonely time. I crawled into tunnels by myself and ate canned beans to survive. I talked to Timmy and did pretend things to make it less scary and lonely. These were memories I didn't want dredged up. I resented it. "And I remember you telling Mr. Weyland that I was nothing but an alien who thought she was a human being!"

The big creature bowed her head. " _My exact words actually suggested that your soul went to heaven,_ but you're right. It wasn't the best thing to say. I confess _I can't actually see the human soul, or where it goes._.."

I figured it was as close to an apology as I'd get, and that she probably still thought the little girl wasn't in this body at all. "Fine. Okay. _Yes, I talk to him._ "

 _"Perhaps you should talk to the Lord."_

 _"Why should I?"_ I pointed to my body. _"He put me in this!"_

"That may be so, but _he understands you. He knows you_. He can reach you in the deepest darkness. It helps to know that, _with him, you're never alone._ "

 _"Thank you, Reverend Deadly Killer Space Monster. I'll keep that in mind._ "

Ernie chuckled. _"You're a space monster too now,_ but I take no offense."

"I met a woman who said she was a Ss'sik'chtokiwij in a human body," Ripley said. "Her larval body got destroyed during a mind connection. I guess anything's possible."

Jeremy nodded. " _I remember that._ A man from that `Fury' prison was worshiping her... _And me._ "

We turned down a corridor.

I gave the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij a sideways glance. "You're looking more and more like the queen every time I see you."

 _"You mean Grandmother,"_ she purred. "You were _so afraid_ of her, even after you gained that body."

On Fury 161, we were investigating the death of one of the inmates, traveling down a dungeon-like corridor. The guy ahead waved his flare around in the dark like a caveman, jumping at shadows.

The guy suddenly refused to go further, pointing a trembling hand to blood spatters along the ceiling. "That's where _Arthur_ died. And _Rains_ over there."

Despite being in the body of a flesh eating larva, I _actually was_ scared, pressing myself small against Ernie's back. "I don't like this."

Ernie petted me. "You have nothing to fear, little one. It is merely another Ss'sik'chtokiwij."

"What if it knows I'm...human inside?" I asked.

"It won't."

That statement actually made me feel worse. That fear that I had, _that's a thing that made me human_. To have aliens chipping away at my humanity, that's almost scarier than a boogeyman in the shadows.

Ernie discovering a trail of blood, told the inmates following him to back off, she'd investigate alone, for their safety.

The alien sniffed her way down the tunnel.

A few yards down, we heard slow heavy breathing.

A large domed head emerged from a darkened doorway, its powerful jaw distending. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik? What are _you_ doing here?"

"Grandmother?" My large companion cried.

Cracked, battered exoskeleton, heat blistered in parts, with many pieces of her body broken off, including the Triceratops-like crown plate.

The queen. She'd followed us to the prison planet.

I shivered in terror. The memory of my fight with her, as a human, was still fresh in my memory.

To Ernie, this was like a family reunion, but the queen was pissed off about how she let Ripley toast a bunch of her eggs and shoot Hissandra in the head. She described my human form as an `ugly larva.'

"I'm glad to see you too, Grandmother," Ernie grumped.

The queen sighed, staring at me."And what's this you have here? _A pair of great grand daughters I know nothing about?"_

 _"This is impossible!"_ I cried. _"We shot you out an airlock!"_

The queen just laughed. " _I've been shot out of lots of airlocks._ "

And then she sniffed me. "That larva is _mine_!"

The audacity of it! She _places an egg in my chest, kills me_ , and now she's claiming to be my mother?

"Fuck you!" I shouted at her. "I'll never be yours! Go to hell!"

Ernie was slow on the uptake. _"You killed Rebecca!"_

 _"Is that what you called the small hooman?"_ The bigger alien purred.

I screamed, clawing at the big body. "You ruined my life! Why couldn't you let me drown in my cryo pod or something! I didn't want this!"

She brushed me away like a fly. I sailed into a wall.

I winced at the memory. Now, as an adult larva, I figured I could have held my own. I mean, sure, Ssunamrozedrah could kick my ass from here to kingdom come, but we're talking about an alien with cracked broken pieces. "You should be glad I was a teeny larva last time I faced her. _If I saw her right now..."_ We'd already discussed revenge, so I didn't finish. I didn't feel like beating a dead horse. " _She'd be afraid of_ me."

Hissandra's daughter laughed at me. " _That a seriously doubt!_ "

 _"Ssunamrozedrah..."_ Ernie scolded. _"Do not grieve your kindred."_

My antagonist sighed. "I...am...sorry."

Like a picked scab, the rest of the unwelcome memory flooded in. Ernie's grandmother, in that corridor, dumbly asking why I was getting so upset about her friggin' murdering me.

"What is that larva talking about? I don't understand."

"Human beings can transfer their spirits into our bodies," Ernie said.

The queen frowned. "That's not possible."

"Possible or not, she _believes_ it happened. And she's very upset about you killing the small child."

The queen took a deep breath, staring at me. "Did she use the ssujmarrux?"

"The what?"

And the big monster showed Ernie her worms.

"Yes. That's what she used."

Grandmother retreated from me in horror. "This is why a ssujmarrux is so seldom used! Its purpose is implanting memories into eggs, and bonding with larvae, not mingling with the puny brains of prey animals! I have heard of Ss'sik'chtokiwij _going mad_ from such experimentations, thinking they are prey beasts and wandering aimlessly in jungles and desert wastes. They ate _grass_ , Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik!" she shook her head in disbelief. "And now I see one such as these in the flesh!"

"Its your fault!" I shouted at her. "I didn't ask to be born as this... _thing!_ "

I tried to kill her again, but she flicked me into a wall like a paper football. "She _really believes_ she is the hooman larva, doesn't she?"

"What if she really is one?" Ernie asked. "At least, in spirit?"

"The Ss'sik'chtokiwij spirit is a mysterious thing. It _could be_ possible."

"It isn't fair," I said. "I didn't want this body."

"Child, I didn't want this either. _I was only laying my egg!"_

I snarled at her, wishing I had _a knife, a gun, anything_ to send that big thing into the hereafter. "You didn't have to lay it in me! _I wasn't even a full grown adult!_ I hate you!"

"Newt..." Ernie scolded. Now that I think of it, she was _always_ trying to make me forgive aliens, maybe even before then, when I was human.

Of course, naturally, I always ignored her. "You know that woman you hate so much?" I said to that queen. "The one that carried that ` _ugly larva_ ' around? That woman is _here_ , ` _grandma_ ', and when she finds you, she's going to pull out the biggest gun she can and blow your brains all over this hallway. And I'm going to be there, laughing as you die, you evil _bitch_!"

I was just saying that. After the rough treatment Ripley had given me earlier, she wouldn't have done shit for me, and the prison was gun free. Wishful thinking, I suppose. Burning with impotent rage, I ran away crying.

I felt a claw on my back. This little trip down memory lane had held up the team. Ernie gave me a kindly smile. "I'm sorry Grandmother put that larva in your body."

I sighed. "Can we talk about something else?... _How's your daughter?_ "

"Which one?"

"Uh..."

 _Julia._

I had a mental picture of her the larva. Her shell had a slight two tone mulatto pattern to it. After my little meet-and-greet with the queen, she informed me that I was her grand aunt.

I told her I didn't understand. Honestly, I did, I just didn't want to.

"You are Grandmother's child, which would make you Ernie's aunt."

The thought of that made me cry. More impotent rage.

"No, no, no! It's okay. I am very happy to have you as a grand aunt, and to know my relationship to you at last."

 _Yeah. Like that was supposed to cheer me up or something._

"I'm sorry you couldn't remain human. But at least you belong somewhere. _You're family now._ "

"I had my _own family_ ," I sobbed. " _I had a mom and a dad!"_

She pressed her shell against mine, tried to share minds with me. I refused to do it. I never wanted to do that again.

"I will not pressure you to do this," she said. "I only wish to comfort you."

Sniffing, I said, "Just give me a hug."

Big Ernie didn't have any worms connected to my brain, so she didn't see all this woolgathering. " _I have many daughters._ "

 _"_ How about _...Julie? The one you didn't kill anyone to birth?_ What happened to her?"

 _"She left with Pillow and the others..._ Do you like Scrabble? I think there's a _board_ on this station somewhere..."

"Let's think about that when we have a place to go to, with _air,_ and _food,_ and _other stuff we need._ "

We needed to go up a floor, but Ernie wouldn't fit in an elevator. She ended up ripping open the floor to the upper level and climbing in that way. A flood of water came rushing down in her wake as she hefted us up into an area with a foot of water surging through its tunnels.

We waded onward.

"What did you mean by Sarah having worms?" Ernie asked me.

I laughed and shook my head. "Obviously you don't believe me, or you would have asked that _a lot_ sooner!"

Ernie growled. " _It is_ difficult to believe. My friend _Maria_ sacrificed her life to destroy the worms. I set fire to her, and the worms, and _the atomic detonation should have vaporized everything else_. Are you _absolutely certain_ you saw them?"

"I did not see any on the girl," Ssunamrozedrah said. "But I _did_ see a room containing a large amount of _parasites_..."

The bigger alien's claws trembled violently, clenching into fists. " _All that struggle and death, and you're telling me they still exist?_ _No, I refuse to believe it!_ "

"That thing had to come from _somewhere,_ " I said. "I mean, who's to say that some random person didn't pick up a worm or two before you killed the rest, and flew off the colony? I mean, the original ones came out of a _meteor...there could be others..._ "

"The worms came out of a barrel that Aunt Ssorzechola ate from!" Ernie argued.

 _"Exactly. Maybe both of us are right. Maybe there's a second source. I know what I saw!"_

The big alien frowned at Sarah. "Has anyone else seen worms coming out of this girl?"

Nobody gave any testimony to support my story, making me question my own sanity. Worse, Ssunamrozedrah even went so far as to say, _"She just made up that story as an excuse to beat the child._ Perhaps _Newt_ has worms! _"_

Sarah, of course, nodded in agreement.

I gave the little girl a one finger salute. "Okay. Tell me this. If Sarah didn't somehow... _use_ the worms to bypass the security in that one room, how the fuck did she do it?"

"She's cloned," Ssunamrozedrah said. "She probably has _special training_ that made her... _useful._ "

"Yes," said Ernie. "These clones often spend the majority of their life in simulations."

The little girl threw in her two cents. _"It's called Sesame Time."_

Infuriated, I turned my back on all three of them, continuing the march. I found Matt joining me.

"I think that girl is suspicious too," he whispered to me. "I think I _did_ actually spot a couple worms hanging off her body."

I smirked a little. "For what it's worth, thanks. I wish _the others_ would believe me!"

"I'd rather wish for my mom to be here."

 _"You and me both!"_ I sighed. "So... _mutant spider kid._ I never got your story. We were too busy rescuing people...aliens, whatever..."

"Okay, _human trapped in an alien body.._.A bunch of scientists got a signal from outer space containing instructions for coding DNA and they injected it into a human fetus, creating my mom. She was kind of like you guys, laying eggs in people's bodies. I got birthed in kind of a messy way. To make a long story short, they killed her, but I survived."

"I'm sorry to hear that. I mean, about your mom."

 _"Hey. We're both orphans."_

I patted him on the back.

The rest of the group caught up with me. They seemed cool. I guess they hadn't overheard our little discussion.

As we passed by a corridor, I heard a sharp crack, then another. Steaming blood sprayed from Ruth's shoulder.


	45. Chapter 50: Everything's Cool

A bullet cracked off a wall right next to my head.

"Whoa! Hey!" I shouted, raising my hands. "Don't shoot!"

I glanced down the intersecting tunnel and saw the crew of the Betty, now fully armed, Johner, the handicapped Vriess strapped to his back, Distephano and Call.

Johner raised his thickly muscled arms, aiming straight for me.

The man cocked back the hammer on his weapon. We _never really had_ established a good rapport.

My alien companions probably could have rushed in and taken the guys down, but we weren't on good terms at the moment, so they just stood around, trying to see which one of us would die first.

With a scream, Sarah came running to the humans. "Help me! _Help! They're trying to kill me!_ "

The man fired around the girl, attempting to kill us while providing her cover. We pressed ourselves against the walls. Ernie, though, remained in the tunnel behind us, because she was too big to go anywhere.

"What do you think about that little brat now?" I muttered to Ssunamrozedrah.

 _"I think whatever happens next is your fault!"_

Ripley handed her baby to Ruth, stepped in between me and the men, spreading her arms. "Stop!"

"Out of the way, Ripley!" Johner shouted. "We ain't got nothing against you, but _these things_ have got to go!"

 _"I_ am _one of those things."_

The man didn't lower his weapon. "Why did she say you tried to kill her?"

"Because she did!" Sarah cried.

The man's trigger finger moved.

"Johner, don't!" Hissed the little man on his back. "She might be able to tell us what the fuck is going on!"

Johner kept pointing the pistol. "You got to the count of ten to explain this shit, starting now."

Ripley frowned. "You should really ask the alien you're trying to use for target practice. She's the one with the answers."

"Fine. _I don't care who talks._ Just give me some damn answers. For starters, _where the fuck are we?_ "

"Um..." I stammered.

 _"Well?"_

I swallowed. "I...don't know."

Johner gritted his teeth, kept the gun steady. "That's not an answer. _Nine._ "

"Look! All I did was _will_ the station to go somewhere where aliens could peacefully exist in safety without harm to themselves or human beings! I didn't stop to think about the location!"

But then the answer popped into my head anyway. "It's Pathilon."

Johner furrowed his brow. _"What?"_

"Um...I thought we'd be safe if we moved somewhere near my friend's planet! _Pathilon!_ "

"My God!" Vriess cried. "We're orbiting a _whole fucking planet of those things?"_

_"That's not where they come from, dumbass."_ I frowned. "At least, _I hope not._ "

"She's right," said Ripley. "I've met a _human_ who came from that planet. It should be safe."

I gawked at her. _"_ You _actually know_ what I'm taking about? _Did you meet Pillow?"_

The woman nodded. "The memories I have before arriving here are hazy, but I do seem to remember speaking to both her and her human friend... _Barnes,_ I think his name was. I visited him every day. Nice guy."

 _"Okay, so maybe we won't die if we go there, but it's not earth."_

 _"Why be picky?"_ Vriess asked.

"You sayin' you _actually believe_ there's a safe place out there?"

"You're right. _There wasn't anything damn close. We did look."_

Johner scowled at me. _"You got us here. Send us back!"_

I didn't want to go back into the throne, but I knew that Mara could possibly move us without the need of me getting my brains smashed in again, if only... "No can do. Mr. Wren's in the control room. He's got a thing that can drop me to the floor before I make a step."

 _"Brain implant,"_ Ripley explained as she picked up her infant.

 _"Let us take care of that. Show us to the control room."_

Ssunamrozedrah growled. "Wait. What about the guns?"

Although heavily accented, the words had been in English. Johner waved his pistol around. "What, this ain't good enough for one man?"

I frowned. "I...don't know. _He's kind of powerful."_

"Wait," said Vriess. _"What guns?"_

I gave Ernie an apologetic smile. " _Maybe you should stay here for the time being._ This operation needs a kind of surgical precision, and you're like a gigantic hostage."

 _"You sure about that?"_ Johner asked. "That thing looks like it could rip the guy's head off like a beer top."

"Like I said, Wren's got a _device_. Last time we tried anything, she ended up writhing on the floor."

The small man looked nervously at his friend. "Maybe a couple extra guns wouldn't hurt, eh, Johner?"

Sarah pointed to me. " _She tried to kill me!_ You _can't_ trust her!"

"I'm not trusting anyone, kid," Johner said through his teeth. _"She's a means to an end."_

 _"So you'll shoot her later?"_

 _"Count on it."_

No one could see me glaring, which was probably just as well.

Johner and his team were understandably nervous around us, Johner pointing a gun at me as I and Ripley followed the holographic bird down the corridor. Vriess, hanging from the man like a backpack, kept his eyes, and a pistol, trained on my `kindred.'

Distephano looked jumpy, but he kept his weapon holstered. Not sure if that were confidence or fear that he didn't have a chance.

The man pointed to Spider Boy. _"What's with the thing?"_

"He's a clone. Kind of a hybrid, but not from our genetics." I winced. I'd just identified myself with the aliens. "So what did you do with Purvis?"

 _"Got him in refrigeration._ Gonna pull that thing out of him once we find the right type of doctor."

I thought about how I and Ripley died, and wondered if it were really possible to remove such a thing.

Johner frowned at Ripley's baby, which incidentally appeared to have aged a few years since I last took a good look at it. "So... _you and that thing back there..."_

She smiled. " _I was not expecting it to arrive so soon,_ but I'm pleased to have him. _He's adorable."_

The man blew a raspberry.

"Literally a face only a mother could love," Vriess whispered to him.

Both men laughed.

Ripley glared at them, looking like she intended to do something violent, but I just shook my head. "Ignore them. I personally think he's cute."

"Thank you." She gave Johner a sideways glance. "You know, I _overheard that Christie's still alive."_

Distephano stopped in his tracks, gaping at her.

Johner reddened. " _Bull shit!_ If he's alive, why the fuck isn't he with us?"

Call opened her mouth to say something, but I didn't want her getting in trouble. _"He's very sick_. He didn't trust me. I'm sure he'd _love_ to see you again."

"He's not in a good condition for any fighting," Ssunamrozedrah growled. "We should destroy this `Wren' human first!"

Johner froze.

"What do you think?" Vriess asked. "Should we go after him? Or get the guns first?"

"We left him for dead. Whatever we do, he's not going to be fucking happy to see us."

Vriess disagreed. _"We're saving a guy's life."_

 _"It's your choice,"_ I said. "As far as I can tell, he's safe. All of us alien monsters are with you."

 _"It will waste time,"_ said Ssunamrozedrah.

Distefano hadn't said much of anything up until this point, probably because he was scared shitless, but now he offered _his_ observation. "That thing is right. It could be a wild goose chase. How do we know it's not a trap for them to kill us all?"

 _"They're about to lead us to a bunch of guns._ It'd be _real handy_ for _us_ to kill _them_ at that point."

 _"Maybe the gun thing is a setup too. Maybe they don't even_ have _guns, and we're going straight to their lair!"_

 _"Whatever happens,_ someone's _going to eat a bullet if they're wrong."_ Johner's glaring eyes bored down on me. _"Show me to Christie."_

"Your human friend is of no importance," Ssunamrozedrah snarled.

Johner opened his mouth to say something (and threaten her with his gun), but Mary spoke first. "Ssunamrozedrah! What would mother say? She cares for humans deeply! Let's not dishonor her, especially so close to where she can hear what you are saying!"

Ssunamrozedrah let out a frustrated animal noise.

"She will go with you," Mary said. For someone of such little skill in English, I was surprised she could communicate this to the man, but I guess, in between me, her family and Ernie, she'd picked something up.

Big Bird knew how to locate the man. I suppose, with all or most of the people in the station gone, it wasn't that hard to use a couple sensors to find a heat signature.

"Do we need to worry about Spider Man here?" Johner asked as we crossed a passageway. "I mean, does he drill holes in people's heads and lay eggs or something?"

"I'm not really sure," I said. "We've never had to test it out."

Matthew gave him a naughty smirk. _"Worry."_

We followed our feathery digital alien guide to a maintenance ladder inside an elevator. We tried to _take_ the elevator, but it refused to respond to the call button, something either to do with the flooding, or Father's meddling in the system. I caught no sign of Mr. Freeze this time.

Ripley climbed ahead of me, a bit slowly due to cradling her baby in one arm.

"You knew about this long before we left in the Betty," Johner said below me. "Didn't you?"

 _"What was I going to do?"_ I asked. "I see a big monster bundling him up in a cocoon, and he looks dead. I almost thought he _was_ dead at first, and, don't forget, _the station was about to wreck into Antarctica, and you only had a couple minutes to get to safety_. That's why I didn't say anything. I came back after you guys were gone just to see if anything more could be done to save him. He got out, but he doesn't look great."

 _"What happened to him?"_

"You'll have to see for yourself."

 _"He's dead,"_ Vriess muttered.

"No, no, he's just... _not great._ "

 _"Can he walk? And hold a gun?_ "

"Yes, but I don't think he'll be able to _shoot_ worth a damn. It's...hard to explain. The thing that attacked him, it wasn't one of... _these guys._ "

"I want to hear this shit from his own mouth."

"Fine. Let's keep moving."

We suddenly heard mechanical groaning sounds.

"What was that?" Vriess cried in alarm.

"Just the elevator," I said.

Johner flinched. "Jesus! _Now you tell us!"_

"We're not going to get out of here any faster if we all panic."

The took awhile to come after us due to all the water. By the time it reached us, we were jumping through a maintenance hatch.

Matt screamed. I rushed back to check on him, but it appeared to be a false alarm. The elevator zipped past the ladder without doing him the slightest amount of injury.

"Waste of time," Ssunamrozedrah grumbled in annoyance.

"It would be more efficient if we just killed and ate the humans," Jeremy agreed. Luckily, that comment was not spoken in English.

Mary frowned at them. "Mother would not want us to do that."

"Are we supposed to eat grass?"

"I have heard of meat substitutes. We must ask her about it when we return."

"Thanks for covering for me," Call whispered to me. _I've caused them so much trouble in the last few days..._ "

I swallowed, giving her a nod. "You had my back, so I thought I'd return the favor."

We strode down a corridor.

"So," I said to Ripley. " _You knew Barnes._ "

"Yeah. He told me some crazy story about marrying an alien." She glanced at her baby. "I suppose anything's possible."

"You don't need to kill all the aliens," I heard Sarah muttering to Johner. "Just Newt. _She hurt me._ "

The man eyed her with suspicion. _"I'd feel a lot safer if all of them are dead, but if they leave us the fuck alone, I'll think about it."_

"I'm glad to hear it."

I clenched and unclenched my fists, keeping my comments, and anger, to myself.

Ripley smirked at the android. "You're taking all of this pretty calmly for someone that came here to kill me."

Call swallowed. "I saw what Perez and the others did to those frozen people we carried in." She cast my Ss'sik'chtokiwij companions an uncomfortable glance. "I don't know who the monster is anymore."

 _"Maybe there's something of a monster in all of us."_

Without warning, a door exploded, an immense fireball blasting into the hallway. Water gushed out, carrying the smashed up monitor and the chair I'd used against someone as weapons a few hours ago.

Apparently the unattended Bunsen burner had caught one of the fuel tanks on fire somehow. The drawings Claudia had crumpled up and thrown away floated out like little boats, some becoming fireballs that puffed out when they burnt to water level.

A second explosion obliterated a wall.

I shoved Distephano to the floor, shielding him with my body. Small shards of metal stuck into my shell. They didn't appear to have hit anything vital. I didn't feel any pain.

The man had landed in a couple inches of water, which is a lot better than burning up. I gazed at him, admiring his handsome face, the strong muscles, running a claw over his stubbly hair.

The man stared at me, bug eyed in terror.

 _"Hey,"_ I chuckled. _"I'm not going to hurt you."_

I helped him to his feet, pulled him into a corridor, away from the fire.

The guy kept gawking, bulge eyed, like a rabbit. " _Uh...thank you._ " He swallowed. " _Thanks for saving my life._ "

He gave me a nervous smile. I should have read it as an impulse to turn away from me and run like hell, but the dumb preteen (or teen) within me stupidly thought that we were having a moment.

Smiling, I wiped steaming drool away from my lips, gazing into his eyes. "So what's a cute guy like you doing with..." Not wanting to offend, I stopped myself. _"These guys."_

 _"They're my buddies,"_ he said. "They've had my back for as long as I can remember. We've pulled off some amazing heists together."

I nodded. _"Cool. Guess they're not so bad once you get to know them, huh?"_

Johner laughed. _"Don't look now, `Steph, but I think that thing has the hots for you."_

As an alien, I knew I couldn't blush, but I felt warm, like I was doing it. I decided to fight down the embarrassment and persist, gently placing a clean claw on Distephano's shoulder. _"To eres muy guapo."_ I paused. "Did I say that right?"

The man's Adam's apple bobbed in discomfort. He gave me a nod. "Would you be offended if I said I wasn't interested?"

 _"Now, it'll just rip a hole through your forehead,"_ Johner joked.

"Jesus, don't say things like that!" The man crossed himself, to protect himself from the bad luck.

"You are in love with that human?" Ruth hissed to me.

"I...maybe? _You know I used to_ be _a human once, right?_ What's it to you?"

"Nothing. I just fail to understand how you would have children without killing him."

I sighed. "Thanks for bursting my bubble, Ruth."

The sprinklers came on, suppressing the flames before they could reach further areas of the ship.

Johner clicked back the hammer of his gun, pointing it at my head. "You _knew_ about this, didn't you?"

I would have said maybe, but I didn't want another hole in my skull. " _Not really_. It was an _accident_. Damn near got myself blown up."

 _"Accidentally on purpose,"_ Vriess muttered.

Johner lowered his weapon. "If she's dumb enough to do that, it might do us all a favor and blow itself up."

"Devil's advocate," Distephano said. "It _did_ just save my life. The thing could have just let me get blown to bits."

Johner chortled through his nose. _"Only because it's got the hots for you."_

 _"You two of you should get a room,"_ Vriess chuckled.

Distephano's face changed color. "Hey, fuck you. I'm just saying-"

The little man on Johner's back looked skeptical. _"It could be an act. You know, get our guards down."_

Sarah chimed in with an "It _is_ an act!"

Johner gave her a nod. " _Bet if I'd been in the path of that explosion, it would have let my ass die."_

I crossed my arms indignantly. "And I bet you'd blow a hole through my head if I even _tried_ to save you."

The look on Call's face told me she knew that all too well.

"Fair point," Vriess muttered.

"So...I gather that Christie is around here somewhere?"

I shook my head. " _That's just my room._ We got a ways to go." I would have mentioned how close we were to Wren, but the portal was closed, and we weren't prepared for a fight yet.

Ripley's baby started wailing, and it wouldn't shut up even when she bounced it.

 _"Could you do something about that...?"_ Johner asked.

In response, the woman held Sammy in front of him, smiling as the baby melted the carpet with its steaming urine.

"Oh sick!"

The baby quieted down.

 _"All better, Mr. Johner."_

I followed Big Bird down the corridor, then stopped. "Wait. _This isn't where we left Christie. We went down a floor or two, didn't we?"_

The feathery electronic mosquito thing replied, "Correct. This is not where you left him. He has moved."

"But the man's half blind! How did he find his way _here?"_

 _"I had help."_

Christie calmly strolled out into the hallway, giving Johner and his companions a friendly smile. _"Hey guys! Long time no see! Miss me?"_

Johner stared in worriment at the acid scarred face, the weirdly bleached skin, hair and discolored eyes. "Christie! Thank God! We all thought those things had killed you!"

Christie winced, like he were in pain or something, but then smiled in a way that seemed forced. "Hey! No worries! Everything's cool!"

Our holographic guide smiled at him, but I eyed the man warily. Everything didn't exactly look that ` _cool._ '

 _"What happened to you?_ _You look like hell!_ "

Christie shook his head. _"Long story."_

"Yeah? _Well we'd like to hear it._ "

The android looked like she wanted to say something, but we both knew that Johner preferred to hear it coming from the horse's mouth.

Instead of answering, Christie stared at Ripley's baby. " _Congratulations. Cute kid."_

Johner looked like he'd smelled a fart. " _Christie, you seem a little off..._ "

 _"I'd say a lot off,"_ Vriess remarked. _"Christie, did you notice that the thing's eyeballs were missing and it's got a mouth like a damn shark?"_

 _"I got an open mind."_

 _"Yeah? That's how your brains fall out."_

Ripley rubbed her infant's head, giving it baby talk. _"Don't let them hurt your feelings! Mama's baby is adorable!"_

"Regardless," Call said. "He _does_ seem a little out of sorts."

A moment later, _Lacy_ came out to join us. My alien companions snarled.

Johner aimed his gun at her.

Christie raised his hands defensively. "Relax! _It's cool. This thing is helping me."_

"Bullshit," I said.

 _"Whatever you think of her, she saved my life._ Back there, when I was drowning, _when you and everyone else left me behind..."_

"Hey!" I cried. " _I'm_ the one that saved you, _not her!"_

"Tsk, tsk, Becky," Lacy mocked. _"Memory's just not as good as it used to be, is it?"_

Johner, Vriess and Distefano stared at me with discomfort. Call looked like she were having a headache. I gave Ripley a pleading look, but she said nothing.

I clenched my fists. "You're a bitch and a liar!"

 _"Often people create the most stinging insults out of things they don't like about themselves."_

The other Ss'sik'chtokiwij murmured amongst themselves about this, but didn't step in to help me. "Fuck you."

Lacy only smiled. _"It seems you are also a brilliant conversationalist."_

"I hope this mean part of yourself burns in hell."

She just laughed at me.

Christie chuckled. "Ladies, please. No need to fight. Everything's fine. I'm alive, that's what matters."

"If you always behave like this," Ssunamrozedrah growled. "Perhaps it would have been better if Newt had not rescued you at all!"

Johner's eyes kept narrowing, as if he didn't buy Christie's act, but didn't voice his suspicion. " _...All...right,_ well (ahem) we're going to gather..." He cast Lacy an uncomfortable glance. _"Some supplies, and go to this place's control room._ Apparently our friend here knows a way to _move this whole ship across dimensions,_ so we can get back to earth."

Christie's vacant smile widened. " _I'm well aware._ In fact, _it's a good thing we've met up like this. It'll save some time._ You see, me and Wren have been discussing the very same thing."

 _"Smart man,"_ Lacy agreed.

Johner furrowed his brow. " _You what?_ Are you crazy? _The guy tried to kill us, and now you and that wack job are hanging out?"_

Christie winced again. "I know. He acts kinda cowardly sometimes, _and he's a little selfish_ , but the man's okay. He wants the same thing we want, a way back to earth. He really doesn't want to kill you. If you keep the terms of the original agreement, and keep things hush hush, he's willing to let you go home."

 _"Provided he keeps_ my family _as weapons for their government!"_ Ssunamrozedrah shouted.

Matt, literally possessing hackles, raised them.

Johner frowned, actually appearing to take the offer seriously.

Distephano looked disturbed. _"You're actually going to go along with this shit?"_

 _"I...I'm not sure we have a choice."_

"The deed is done," Vriess agreed. "Whatever dark shit he's doing here, it's none of our business. _At least we can walk away with some money...On earth._ "

"They're talking of imprisoning us again, aren't they?" Jeremy complained in Ss'sik'chtokiwij. "We should kill them all!"

 _"Jeremy,"_ Mary scolded. _"We talked about this."_

To my absolute shock, Sarah wasn't going along with this farce. "Don't trust him! I don't like that man!"

"Yeah," said Call. "What about all those people he impregnated with _those things?_ " She glanced at Ripley apologetically. "No offense...My point is, _he's a mass murderer!_ "

Christie looked unphased by that comment. " _You look pretty cozy with them right now_. _They were a bunch of wealthy venture capitalists anyway. No big loss!"_

"You sure you're all right, Christie? _You're acting kinda flaky._ "

"No, no, I'm cool. Everything's cool... _Look, man. Okay, so the guy's a dirtbag, but he's got a way to send us home! You got to give him props for that!"_

Johner was shaking his head no, but he still said, "...All right, so... _where's this...control room?_ "

Christie led us down a corridor, where we got joined by Bruno and Claudia. Bruno, heavily bandaged, hobbled along on a cane.

 _"Nice of you to join us,"_ said the woman.

Johner looked even more alarmed now, but kept his mouth shut.

None of my alien companions liked seeing the two any more than they had appreciated Lacy's sudden reappearance. They argued amongst themselves in Ss'sik'chtokiwij.

I frowned at the two scientists. "So you're working for Wren now."

 _"We always worked for him."_

"Did you always know that he likes to include Satanism into his so-called _`scientific research'?_ "

Claudia rolled her eyes. " _You wouldn't care about his bias if he believe in Intelligent Design._ "

I sighed. "Yeah? Well maybe you're right! At least, with a bias toward a creator, _a good creator_ , you wouldn't be sacrificing goats and children to attain evil powers!"

 _"Wren has never killed a child."_

 _"Not yet,_ you mean."

"Just because he believes something different doesn't mean he's an evil man."

"No, he's an evil man because he impregnates innocent people with larva."

"Do you want to stand around and argue?" Lacy asked. "Or do you want to go home?"

I glared at her. "You're asking the wrong person. I'm fine where I am."

 _"This is a time sensitive matter, Becky. We don't have time for this."_

"You're not convincing me to help you."

"Ladies," Johner scolded. _"Can we_ please _move this along?"_

"You're making a mistake," I said.

The man pointed his gun at me. "Not as big as if you don't help us get back to earth. Move."

We continued to follow Lacy, Christie close at her chitinous heels.

After a few more yards, Johner sighed in frustration. With Vriess's weight on his back, it was a wonder he didn't get tired sooner. "How much further we got to walk?"

"Not much."

We turned a corner, entering a lab. Along one wall, a pair of golden posts glowed, revealing a shimmering portal to the throne room.

Lacy gestured to the opening. _"Right this way, gentlemen and ladies."_

Johner stopped in the middle of the room. "No dice. I hate when people act shifty, especially when trying to make me go through Skeletor's magic portal."

 _"I was afraid you'd say something like that."_ Lacy had a Magnum in a holster slung around her waist. In one quick movement, she had its barrel pressed to Christie's head. "You're coming with me, or your friend dies."

Johner pulled his own weapon, but Lacy was already dragging her hostage through the magic gate.

"Johner go!" Christie shouted. "Leave me! Wren's crazy! He'll kill you!"

His friend unthinkingly rushed through the opening with his weapon drawn, Distephano, Call and Ripley following after.

 _"You should probably go with them,"_ Claudia said to me in a threatening tone.

Ssunamrozedrah growled and shook her head, suggesting in Ss'sik'chtokiwij, "We should go get weapons first."

Claudia had plenty of time to study the language. "That would be unwise. _Wren's overheard you talking._ The moment you even try to grab a weapon from downstairs, we'll drop your _big friend_ on the other floor."

"Good luck on that!" I laughed. "We'll kill you before you even reach her!"

 _"I'm afraid we're already there."_ She showed a video on her phone, where the big alien queen sat surrounded by androids and small spider-like machines with assault rifles mounted on their frames. A second screen showed explosives cleverly hidden in the bulkheads. _"One false move, and your friend will be floating space debris."_

 _"How the fuck did you get down there?"_

 _"The same way we can do this!"_

I looked down just in time to see a shimmering hole open up beneath my feet. Somehow the glowing goal posts had expanded horizontally.

I fell, screaming, through the ceiling of the throne room, right into Wren's trap.

As I lay groaning on the floor, I heard Wren's voice saying, "Welcome back, Becky. _Glad you decided to change your mind._ "

"Go fuck yourself."

"Amen, sister." Johner still had his pistol aimed at Lacy, though, with the hostage, he didn't have a clear shot.

I stared at the throne with dismay. "Mara! How could you!"

"I am sorry," the disembodied Android answered. "They are holding Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik hostage."

Johner's gun hadn't moved, and neither had Lacy's. Mexican standoff.

"Do it," Christie said. "You can't let the bastard win."

 _"I'd cooperate if I were you."_ Lacy shifted her grip on the pistol. _"We can get you to earth."_

"From what I hear, there's a safe planet nearby."

"You gonna believe some gay fantasy story about monkey people on an alien planet? _Or do you want to go to a place that actually exists?_ "

"She's got a point, Johner," Vriess said. "Our scanners didn't even _detect_ a planet nearby."

"Yeah? _Well I take offense at anyone holding a pistol to a friend's head._ "

 _"Also a valid point!"_

"I'll let him go if you drop your weapon," Lacy said.

 _"You drop yours first."_

 _"I'm afraid I can't do that."_

 _"Then_ I'm afraid _we don't have a deal."_

Ssunamrozedrah and Jeremy tried to sneak around her back.

"Stay where you are! All of you!" Lacy yelled. "Our your friend gets it!"

Johner cast a sideways glance at Lacy's _`boss'_. "I don't know what game you're playing, here, Wren, but I'm not buying."

"You're fortunate that the ` _game_ ', as you call it, no longer requires your involvement."

"But we _do_ need his ship," Lacy said.

"Yes, _there is_ that."

Johner snarled an answer through his teeth. "You're not getting the Betty."

 _"I am_ , or your friend will die."

"Just for giggles, why the fuck do you need it anyway? _You can teleport shit._ "

"The machinery has a very limited range."

 _"You moved the entire station across the galaxy. Define limited."_

"Our panicking crew took all the smaller vehicles, and this station wasn't designed to land on planets."

 _"Is that a fact?_ Well tough titty pal, _you ain't gettin' my ship!"_

"Now now," Wren laughed. "We all want the same things. If everything goes according to plan, you will _all_ return to earth. Our business transaction will be honored, and you can go on your merry way."

"What about the _things_?" Call asked. "You're going to use them for some military project, aren't you?"

Wren chuckled like she'd told a funny joke. " _Military project?_ Why settle for some paltry sum from the Department of Defense _when I can become a_ god?"

 _"Sorry, I don't make deals with lunatics. The Betty stays with me."_

Lacy gave Johner a nasty smile. "I think you overestimate how much I value your friend's life."

 _"I don't!"_ In a lightning fast move, Ssunamrozedrah whipped the weapon out of Johner's hand, shot Christie in the leg, then, as the hostage doubled over in pain, Ernie's niece shot our surprised enemy in the shoulder.

Lacy fell to the floor. "Ow! The fucker pulled a _Speed_ on me!"

As Call rushed to aid our wounded comrade, Ssunamrozedrah turned the pistol on Wren, fired twice, but the madman just turned into a smoke, and a crowd of shadow men appeared out of nowhere.

"Oh Jesus!" Johner cried. "What the hell are those!"

Thinking I could somehow use my gold hand to do something, I raised it and prayed, but I guess I didn't pray right. Nothing happened. I heard an ominous laugh in response.

 _Mary_ , however, seemed to be on fire for the Lord, or something, for she blew away the whole lot of them with her Godzilla routine.

Johner snatched up Lacy's weapon before she could use it on anyone else.

He pointed it at Ssunamrozedrah. "Don't ever touch my gun again."

The alien took it in stride. _"I'll keep that in mind if we live through this."_

The man aimed at Wren and fired, but the bullets only disappeared into the mist. Our enemy waved his hand, and the pistol flew across the room.

Mary turned to face Wren, opened her mouth for another deadly Godzilla breath attack.

The man smiled, reached into his pocket, and all of us aliens collapsed on the floor, writhing in convulsions, including Matt _and_ Ripley.

Vriess aimed his gun at our foe, but again, no clear shot.

Okay, so not all of us aliens had been incapacitated. Lacy, for example, hadn't been affected in the slightest, so when Ripley's baby, born without a debilitating implant, came rushing across the floor (presumably to kill Wren), she could quickly pounce and hold the wiggling creature to her chest.

Matt tried to get up, but he could only spasm and scream.

Shadow men materialized in the chamber, one standing before each of my human allies. Johner inhaled, and one of the dark figures disappeared inside his mouth and nostrils, a second one invading Vriess. Distephano cried out prayers in Spanish, but I guess he lacked faith, because a third shadow man entered his own body.

Johner and Distephano, zombie-like, turned to face me. "Get in the chair, Becky," the two _and_ Vriess said in unison.

"Don't," Call warned. "I don't know what this is, but -"

A second later, she dropped to the floor like a mannequin. Wren had pushed something on his little device.

"This can end anytime you want, Becky," Wren said in a booming voice. "I'll let your friends go. Just get in the chair."

I laughed. "If you can do everything I've just seen, _why the hell do you need me in that thing?_ "

"These are mere parlor tricks compared to what the throne can do. You have only scratched the surface of its power. Get in the chair."

"Go to hell."

He pushed a button, and every part of my body erupted in pain.

"Did you know this device comes with more than one setting? I'd _love_ to try out the other ones!"

"Big Bird!" I croaked. "Mara! Help!"

"I'm sorry," came the android's disembodied voice. "I love Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik too much to let her die."

"Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik's death would make me very unhappy," Big Bird agreed. "After all, she has taught me the _meaning_ of happiness."

"Oh God," I groaned. "So you'd rather let me die instead."

"You would not die. You have placed your brain in the device before with no ill effect."

 _"No ill effect!_ Since you're _clearly_ not carbon based life forms, let me spell it out for you: A harpoon stabbing you through the brain _is technically a fucking ill effect!_ "

"I am sorry," said Big Bird. "According to that definition, the injury Wren proposes to do to Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik will have a _vastly greater degree of fucking ill effectiveness._ I cannot permit this to happen."

"Jesus," I muttered.

"As you can see, Becky," Wren said. " _You have no options left. I suggest you cooperate._ "

For a moment, it seemed like Vriess's shadow man had weakened. "Why does she have to get in that thing anyway?" he asked. "Why don't _you_ sit in it?"

"It's fatal to humans, simpleton." Wren waved his hand, and the little guy went back into zombie mode. _"Claudia, bring it in."_

I stared in bafflement as the woman pushed a cart into the room, laden with a giant strange looking egg incubator. Through the glass, I could see a mottled green-brown spheroid roughly the size of an ostrich egg.

"As you can see, Becky. I was telling the truth. Cooperate with me, and you can start your life over in this new body. You'll no longer be an alien bug, you'll have all the weaknesses and frailties you've been pining for all these days in confinement."

"It seems I'm an open book to you," I muttered.

 _"So you've decided to cooperate?"_

 _"Yeah right._ How will I do anything with your egg when you've got my brains mashed up inside that machine?"

 _"The same way I can bring back the souls of the dead."_

"The guy has a point. If you can do that, you should be able to sit in that chair yourself. In fact, I disabled the alarm thing so it no longer poisons you to death."

"You know it's not that easy. My spirit still has a human flesh container. It wouldn't survive the stress. _Plus I know what you're trying to do. The moment I made the attempt, your android friend would reactivate the poison trap._ "

I wish you'd do it anyway, I thought. It'd save me a lot of trouble.

I only considered his offer for a second. " _I...can't. There's a child in there._ I know what it's like to have your life ripped away from you before you even live it. _No deal._ "

"You have two options before you right now. You can do what I ask voluntarily, _or involuntarily_. Believe me, _you don't want to see involuntary._ "

Now, all of this time, _the little girl_ had just been standing around, passively watching us with her arms behind her back. Despite being a fellow prisoner, the device hadn't seemed to work on her.

You don't expect much from a little girl, and _I_ certainly didn't expect much from someone who had worms and treated me like shit. But now she spoke up. "Allow me. Perhaps _I_ can convince her."

 _"You?"_ the man scoffed. _"Intend_ to convince _her? Why?"_

"You have access to a power I want. _I'm certain we can come to a mutual understanding._ "

" _She wanted to bash your brains in!_ I'd be surprised if you convince her of anything."

I just stared. _"I'd be surprised myself_."

 _"I have my methods."_

I knew full well how she intended to ' _convince_ ' me. I saw how that monster Ssorzechola dumped all those worms on Noah, using his house church to create that army of brainwashed worm zombies. I backed away in horror.

The girl lowered her voice, appearing to look directly into my eyes. "Becky. Trust me. _I don't like him any more than you. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."_

I froze, would have raised an eyebrow if I had one. "You're a bunch of worms."

Giving me a sweet, innocent smile, the girl asked, _"You want him in charge, or me?"_

I swallowed, not answering.

 _"Do you trust me?"_

"Oh God no. I don't know what kind of trick you're pulling, but it's horse shit."

Wren materialized next to us suddenly. "I heard every word you said. If you try anything, you little bitch, I'll destroy you."

Sarah didn't reply. Instead, the girl just cleared her throat, making such an elaborate production out of it that I thought she were hacking up a hairball.

She vomited, a spray of tiny wiggling creatures as thin and as fine as thread or dental floss that went all over my chest. I tried to back away, tried to brush the fucking disgusting things off my exoskeleton, but they kept wriggling into the cracks and crevices, the ones on the floor curling up like little cobras before a snake charmer, diving into the open joints between my body plates.

The more worms gushed out, the less human the girl looked, her body seeming to deflate like a punctured soccer ball. The girl's eyes became sunken, shriveling like raisins inside their sockets, her plump face shrinking down to a skull, reminding me of that scene from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_.

A lifeless bag of skin and bone dropped onto the ground as a mound of worms flooded my mouth.

I saw stars, then darkness.

I was... _somewhere else_. I and Sarah floated in a darkened void. I was _human_ again, a reflection of the me on the inside.

"You asked if I trusted you," I said. "I don't. _You just invaded my body_. For all I know, my real body is running around killing people, just like those things did on Archeron.

Sarah watched a memory of me running from a thick limbed balding guy in camo, his eyes a solid white from the worm infestation. I punched the man in the crotch, diving into the maintenance tunnels.

And then came my mental image of _her old friend_. _Ssorzechola_.

 _"Not friend."_ Sarah said. _"Mother."_

"I _knew_ this was a bad idea."

It was too late, though, she'd already gotten inside my head.

After Ssorzechola filled Noah with her worms, she attacked his little house church. The man's wife, Sweetie, tried to attack the monster with a can of bug spray, but it didn't work. She got shot full of the monster's paralyzing darts, cocooned, and later impregnated with a worm infested alien egg.

About ten people, all dressed for church, cowered around the monster, either paralyzed in fear, praying, or anxiously searching for the right opportunity to run out. The other people lay on the ground, impregnated with eggs, or sprawled over folding chairs with quills stuck in their bodies, one laid out on the carpet. A woman's baby cried.

I could see a couple more people guarded by Noah's Indian friend Kumar. He had a gun, but I doubted he actually had practice with it.

I had been hiding in a back bedroom, seeing all this through a crack in the door. My little brother was hiding in a ventilation shaft at the other end of the room. It seemed Ernie had been in the same vent with him, for a moment later, she opened the register and squeezed her body out into the Koreans' living room.

At first I thought for sure she had eaten my brother, but then I saw her tail shoving him back inside the vent, fully alive.

The bad part: Ernie had announced her presence by knocking over a chair. Also, Noah's friend Kumar had noticed, and was shooting a gun at her. Some religious talk made him pause his firing, for a moment. Ernie took the opportunity to speak with the monster.

I don't know what they talked about. At the time, I didn't know much of their language.

When I saw Ssorzechola idly murdering people with her tail, I shuddered and retreated into the room.

Hearing the sounds of breaking furniture, I peeked out the crack in the door again. Ssorzechola had just thrown Ernie through a pulpit.

Ernie had gained a weapon from somewhere, a nasty switchblade looking thing that seemed designed for aliens of her species. She flicked the blade out, growling threateningly at the monster.

She leaped, slashing Ssorzechola across the face with the blade.

Ernie got thrown into a plasma TV. The thing broke to pieces. She got up to do another attack, but only ended up crashing into a bookcase.

Kumar chose this opportunity to sneak a couple of his friends out. I gave him a questioning look, but he just shook his head no and mouthed "Wait."

Ssorzechola was now holding Ernie's arms down with two claws, her extra set of limbs bashing her in the face. Ernie tried to cut her way out, but ended up with a dislocated shoulder for her troubles.

Kumar shot at the monster, distracting her. Ernie used the distraction to chop off one of Ssorzechola's arms. The monster bled worms, tried to amputate one of Ernie's limbs, but Kumar shot her again.

Ernie got thrown into the kitchen. I heard dishes breaking.

The Indian ran out of bullets at this point. He received a faceful of quills for his trouble.

Ernie climbed up on the ceiling, jumped down onto the big Ss'sik'chtokiwij's back, raising her blade.

I thought for sure that she'd kill her right then and there, but instead Ernie sheathed the weapon, making soft growls to the monster.

And then she kissed it on the mouth.

Both aliens slumped to the floor, appearing to be unconscious.

I rushed out their front door as fast as my legs could carry me.

I met up with Timmy. We crawled through vents, arriving at a HAB belonging to a fat lady named Becky Butler, or as kids in school called her, `Betsy Butterfingers.' Sunny yellow walls, framed pictures of family and children, posters of cartoon characters, dogs and kittens, children's toys.

We were hungry, so we sneaked into her kitchen, stealing food from the refrigerator. Betsy Butterfingers caught us, of course.

"You guys are in _so_ much trouble!" Becky she said in mock serious tones. "You know what I do to little bandits that break into my home to steal food?"

I shook my head.

"Well... _First,_ I call their parents. _Then,_ as I'm waiting for them to arrive, I _cook a nice meal for them_. Maybe give them _ice cream and cookies for dessert_."

"Can I have some too, mama?" That was Landon, her boy. Timmy knew him, but he wasn't in my grade.

Betsy laughed. "Only if you want to hang out with a _gang of outlaws_!" She read our bodies with a scanner. "Where's your chips?"

"We don't have any," I told her.

The woman frowned.

"Dad says that Big Brother doesn't need to know every time he takes a shit," Timmy said.

"We're going to have to work on that potty mouth of yours." Betsy pointed a flat camera at me. "Hold still."

I should have run right then, but I didn't know what she was doing. "What's that?"

"I'm surprised you don't know. _It's for facial recognition._ You _have_ to have had some pictures taken for class. Little Landon just had his taken a week ago. Once I've got a match, I'll have your parents. _Unless you want to be so kind as to tell me your names..._ "

I refused to tell her.

Betsy glanced back at her boy. "Do these two look familiar to you?"

Landon scrunched his face. "Uh... _maybe_. I don't remember." He gave an indifferent shrug.

The mother frowned, pushing a button on the device.

"Don't bother," I said as I watched her trying to search for my parents on the device. "They're both dead."

Betsy's device displayed an image of the Indian. "It says here that a _Mr. Kumar Mahida_ is your _temporary legal guardian_."

"I don't like him," I said. "Him and his friends are all stupid bible thumpers. They don't even believe there are monsters on this base. When I said the monsters killed mom and dad, they said I was lying."

The woman frowned. "What kind of monsters?"

I knew Ernie had been spying on me, so instead of explaining, I just knocked on the ventilation register. "Ernie! You can come out now!"

The moment the alien showed herself, Betsy cried, "What in God's name is that _thing_ doing out of its cage!"

Ernie explained the manner of her escape in English.

Betsy retreated, pulling me along with her. She threatened the alien with a serrated bread knife. "Don't come any closer!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Find someplace safe to hide!" she hissed to me.

"I mean you no harm," Ernie said. "I am here to protect you."

And then Ernie's alien buddies came crawling out, and the woman fainted.

I and Timmy swiped some chips, some BLT's from the fridge, and dove into the air system. We weren't about to sit and wait for some madman to come grab us again. I mean, granted, _Kumar tried to stop Noah_ , but I didn't want to touch anyone associated with that man with a ten foot pole.

We did, however, sit and wait in the darkness of the ventilation ducts. As we ate, we heard Betsy's husband come in, talking to Ernie.

"Where is she now?" I heard the man ask.

Landon pointed right at me. I should have put the register back on.

I saw Mr. Butler's bald brown head peering in, flashlight in one hand. "Hey! Little girl!"

I retreated, but he tried to crawl inside with me. I bit him.

 _That_ got him out of the vent!

" _Little bitch_!"

Me and Timmy fled through the air ducts, climbing out into the hallway behind the HAB.

A moment later, a pair of strong men were dragging both of us to Betsy's front door.

The door came open, and I found Noah grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, bringing me back to the bald guy. I didn't get to see what they did with Timmy.

"Now," Noah said with a grin. "I wish to tell you about the New Zion..."

The Korean took out a bible, launching into a weird Magical Mystery Tour of quasi-religious nonsense about the bug monster setting up a tabernacle to dwell with mankind eternally. Ernie tried to argue with the man, but when you're that far down the rabbit hole, rational thought doesn't really fit into the equation anymore.

 _"You should listen to Ernie,"_ I urged. _"The guy's insane!"_

One of Noah's thugs grabbed me. "I think the Little Miss is just _tired_. Is there a bedroom around here somewhere?"

Mr. Butler showed him a door. "Right through there."

"I'm not tired!" I shouted. "Let go!"

Noah just gave a dismissive laugh. " _Children._ "

I got dragged into the woman's room. Big king size bed, pictures of kittens, family members, a painting of horses, and a crucifix. The man threw me on the woman's bed, forcefully tucking me in.

 _"Blessed is the sleep of the laborer,_ " the man quoted, or possibly misquoted. " _For the worries of the rich and idle giveth them no rest._ "

"I'm not tired," I insisted. "And I'm sure as hell not going to sleep while there's some creep hovering over my bed! _You'll probably try to take my clothes off and do something to me!_ "

"Honey, I ain't no child molester. Don't you know that men who do such things will reincarnate as fodder for Ssorzechola's belly in the coming kingdom?"

And then he starts preaching to me about his weird religious philosophy, kind of a mishmash of the kinds of things Jehovah's Witnesses talk about, but a lot more screwed up and alien centered. I don't know, I guess he was trying to make me sleep or something.

I jumped out of the bed, kicking him in the crotch as I clawed him in the face. He grabbed me, so I bit him. A lot.

The man screamed, carried me to a dresser, presumably to bash in my skull.

"Mr. Rockett!" I heard Noah calling from the other room. " _We are going?_ Please bring the child along. She is necessary for our plan."

So then I'm being dragged back out into the living room. _"She's a feisty one, but I still got her!"_

"Let her go!" Betsy had her husband's gun, pointing it at my captor.

Noah only seemed mildly amused. "I would not do that if I were you. _I believe you are aware this girl has a brother?"_

With trembling hands, Betsy lowered the weapon. "If there is a God, and I certainly hope there is, I hope he throws you into hell first."

"That is impossible," Noah said. "Hell does not exist. When judgment come, God's holy angels merely consumes the bodies and spirits of the wicked sinner such as yourself. _Good day?_ "

"I hope to Christ you're wrong. Because I want to be there when they throw your grinning ass in a lake of fire."

I tried to get away again, but Mr. Rockett was an adult, and a little too strong for me. "Isaiah 61:4 says they shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations, they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastation of many generations. Do you really think that God is going to be doing all of this building _in hell_?"

"Yes. And I hope he grinds your fat ass into the dirt while building it, too!"

"You're not so small yourself, Ms. Butler." Mr. Rockett took off one of his shoes. "I shake the dust off my feet in this place, and pronounce a curse from Jehovah upon this habitation of sin and wickedness!"

It takes one hand to remove a shoe. A hand that should have been holding me. I wiggled out of his grip and bolted down the outer hallway.

I didn't get far. Somewhere along the corridor, I got grabbed by this crazy guy named Rapchuck.

Older man, narrow figure, yellow hair cut to resemble a toupee, larger than average ears, glasses. He wore a black suit, a formality their house church apparently insisted upon long before they got possessed by worms. Pale face, skin stretched around his cheekbones in such a way that he appeared to be smiling even when he wasn't.

"Where are you going, Rebecca?" the man asked as he held down my struggling arms. "Can't have you running around the base without a guardian, now can we?"

A moment later, he's pressing a chloroform rag to my face, and I'm seeing stars.

When I woke up, I found my wrists and ankles had been bound together in rope. I pretended to still be asleep the moment I heard the man talking.

The stranger faced a wall. It seemed like a prayer at first, but no, he was actually having a conversation with the wall...Or something in his head. "The children are here. Should I wake them up?"

He paused, as if listening to the wall.

"I understand."

I spotted Ernie lurking behind the ventilation register, but continued to feign sleep.

Mr. Rapchuck sniffed the air a few times, marched to the vent, then growled at it.

The alien disappeared.

I heard a door opening. Someone called to my captor. I kept pretending to sleep, not even getting up to check what he was doing until I heard Rapchuck step out of the room and close the door.

Noting that the bed I lay upon had a pointy metal frame, I wiggled off the bed as quietly as I could muster, rubbing the ropes against the corner. It took forever just to even get part of them frayed enough to be of any use.

Outside, I heard someone making weird dolphin clicks. It almost sounded like a conversation. I heard Mr. Butler's voice right outside the door, but I couldn't trust him, so I kept sawing.

I managed to get through a _sixteenth_ of one rope. I would have killed for a knife, but I hadn't seen any.

Hearing clattering sounds, I flinched, thinking the door would come open, but it didn't. I kept on working.

"I'll go check on it," I heard Mr. Butler saying. Whatever he said after that faded to a point I couldn't understand it.

I had now made it to the _eighth_ mark. It made me tired, but no amount of chewing made the rope get any thinner, and I couldn't figure out how to reach the knot to untie it.

I flinched at the sounds of shouting, then a gunshot.

The door to my room slid open. I quickly jumped back in the bed, rolled over, feigning sleep.

It seemed I did a good job faking. Nobody came in. The door closed again.

I resumed sawing at the rope. I almost got to the quarter mark when I heard commotion in the other room. Loud growling, bodies thudding against walls.

At last my efforts paid off. Although the sawing didn't do much of anything, all that friction loosened the knots, and the fact that my hands were small eventually allowed me to untie myself. I undid the bonds on my ankles, then bumped into Timmy as he came running in my direction, all untied and everything.

We hurried to the door, peeking through the crack at the bottom.

Rapchuck was busy beating on Ernie like The Terminator. Nobody else seemed to be around to stop us from escaping. "Let's go!" I whispered to my brother.

The moment we opened the door, though, the man dropped his alien punching bag and yelled at us. "You're not supposed to be out!"

Ernie clawed at the man's chest, nodding us on as Rapchuck grabbed her by the throat, beating her against the wall.

We rushed to the front door.

Rapchuck turned his head. He looked like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to kill Ernie or grab us first.

Then a gun went off. Mr. Butler had finally come to his senses.

Rapchuck stiffened, grinding his teeth together as he turned to look at his assailant: "You should not have done that."

"You're done controlling me!"

Rapchuck clenched his hand into a fist, and Mr. Butler screamed, collapsing on the floor.

"The plans of the mind belong to man!" Rapchuck barked. "But action comes from the Lord Ssorzechola!"

I opened the door, rushing out into the hallway, my brother close at my heels.

The man didn't come after us right away because Ernie kept him distracted.

Unfortunately, _only I got away_. Noah caught Timmy before he could make it into the vent.

"Go!" was that last thing I heard him say to me.

...Okay, maybe he didn't say that. Maybe it just makes me feel better about being a coward and running away.

Sarah frowned as we reached the end of the memory. "I'm sorry. I did not understand what the main unit, Visjodro, was doing."

"And what the hell were _you_ doing all that time? _Off on some other end of the base playing video games?_ "

"After Visjodro infested Ssorzechola, I began to lose interest in the body, and wished to explore other forms. I joined myself with a guinea pig, and Mason Wren put me in a containment device, shipping me out to this space station for further testing."

"Did your ` _main unit_ ' have any other _`friends'_ that decided to go for a little joyride through the cosmos?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Great," I groaned. "Well, looks like you won, you little creep. You got control of my body just like that thing did to all those people at Hadley's Hope. _Wren's going to make himself a god, and he'll have you to thank._ "

"I don't want that," she said.

"Yeah? Then what the hell _do_ you want?"

"I've lost my main unit. You might not believe it, but _I'm really just a kid_. You have _so much_ you can teach me. _I want to coexist with other lifeforms_...I _don't want_ to be a parasite. I want to be a _symbiote_. I want to _form organs,_ _make things that help other organisms._ "

"Are you fucking serious? You're a flesh eating parasite! _You can't learn!_ "

"You are referring to _platyhelminthes cestoda_ , which has no intelligence. My species can _learn, adapt_ , and with your help, _construct organs_ from our colonies."

"You already had _Sarah_ , _and that didn't work out so hot_. Why didn't _she_ tell you how to... _form Voltron?_ "

"Sarah was _human_. Her body didn't have the same kind of brain, skeletal and muscle structure, _or_ the type of physical control that you currently possess."

"It's technically an _exoskeleton_ , and _you're crazy_. I _have_ no control."

 _"I can help with that."_

I laughed. " _How?_ You can't even form organs!"

A door appeared in front of us. One that seemed... _weirdly familiar_.

 _"Go in there?"_

Sarah shrugged. "Only if you want help piecing things together."

I nervously turned the handle, stepping across the threshold.

I found myself inside a _circa 2018 style_ _apartment_ , cluttered with random shit.

Red leather sofa, two recliners, all framing a low coffee table covered with junk. A laptop, a pizza box, delivery menus, science paperwork and Chinese takeout containers. Bookcases were filled with science books, DVD's, game manuals, lots of novels and such a nerd would appreciate. Markerboard covered in equations...and a five foot tall molecular model.

As I stared at a dart board affixed to the bedroom door, the posters of DC superheroes and Einstein sticking out his tongue, I suddenly noticed a black cocoon had appeared on the sofa cushions, the narrow face and pencil neck of Big Bang Theory's Sheldon Cooper sticking out precisely in that spot he always told everyone on the show never to sit upon. Sticky black slime oozed over his _Roseanne_ -esque crocheted throw cover.

My dad's favorite show. He had the whole series on a memory stick and he'd just keep watching it.

Sheldon wasn't alone. _Raj's_ recliner, the one on the left hand side, had suddenly populated with the little girl, and, behind her, where Sheldon's extra bookcases, an anatomical model, or whatever the hell should have been there, stood the alien queen... _with my face_.

Sheldon's badly cut hair brushed up against the cushion's butt groove as his narrow, bored looking eyes glanced up at me. The whiny, nasal, generally inflectionless sounds that came out of his mouth were just as abrasive in this other world as they were on TV. _"Well! Speak of the devil (if I actually believed in such a thing)! She's finally here!"_

Canned laughter.


	46. Chapter 51: Bob the Blob

I _hated_ that show. The theme song was a bit of sad irony, thinking about how all the monumental achievements of humankind led up to a crappy sitcom full of stupid pop culture references.

"Take a seat, Becky," Sheldon said. _"You'll have to take Leonard's chair. I would have suggested the other end of this couch, but, wouldn't you know it,_ some xenomorph cocooned me to the cushions!"

The laugh track came on after he said this.

I frowned at the little girl occupying Raj's seat. "What is all this? What are you trying to do?"

"A better question _is who you are._ "

Sensing motion, I cast an uncomfortable glance at the spot near the bedroom door. _The molecular model was squirming._

"My God! You're eating my mind!"

"Yes indeedy!" Sheldon joked. _"Every second we sit here, your skull is being hollowed out like a little vacuum tube!"_

"No one's eating anything, Becky," the child said. _"It wants to_ share _your body, like a friend using a straw to share a strawberry milkshake._ "

The idea made me sick to my stomach. "What about _Sarah_? _Did it share_ her _body like a strawberry milkshake?"_

 _"I'm Sarah,"_ she said. "You see, the worms don't know what to do with souls like yours and mine. They're an energy they can't absorb or change."

I just laughed at her. _"So you're a soul now...and you've been, what,_ just hanging out _while that thing eats your body?"_

 _"I'm telling you!"_ Sheldon agreed.

"Actually, no. My body _was_ alive, but it's dead now."

Sheldon gave me a dismissive roll of the eyes and a snort. " _Girl_ , don't listen to her! The _real reason_ you're seeing all this stuff is because you've got tapeworms _turning your brain into a milkshake_ , and it's making you a little _cray-cray!_ _Put_ that _in your little soda straw and slurp it!"_

The live studio audience laughed on cue.

Outside the window, I saw an image of what he described, a xenomorph with a transparent skull, bubbles of brain matter foaming up and popping into nothing like someone blowing through a straw into a cup of Coke. "I have no mind!" it screamed in Ripley's voice.

"I saw what that thing did you your little bunny rabbit," I told the little girl. _"That wasn't a fucking milkshake!"_

"That's why your body is the ideal host. It doesn't come apart at the seams when the interior is compromised."

"Are you saying _my_ interior has been compromised?"

Sarah gave me an apologetic look. _"I told it to stop. Everything is still in good working condition."_

"You'd better be right," I grumbled. "So, what, _you're haunting me?"_

Sheldon, with a condescending look, said, "Okay, _I'll grant you the possibility that those worms maybe gathered some of the girl's leftover brain particles_ and might be making it _seem_ like she's haunting you. Can't say that's much better than _plain old worm infected and cray-cray!_ " Cue Canned Mild Chuckling Track 1.

I had to believe it was something more than what he described, that Sarah's electrical energy, or whatever that made Sarah Sarah, existed independently of her body, and her `Dalek' had merely been imprisoned within a worm infested body. "I'd like the answer from _you_ , little girl."

 _"I'm working with you_. If you'll open up to me and interact with this environment."

 _"Wait, how can I even trust you? You pushed me off a ladder,_ you stabbed me in the back at every opportunity, _and smiled at my misfortune!"_

She shrugged. "Okay, so maybe I _did_ push your little robot body off a ladder. _The worms were looking for a suitable host, and you were getting in the way._ "

She caught a flash of my memories.

 _"I'm not that Sarah, Becky. I'm not a pathetic nobody trying to steal your youth."_

"Whoa," I stammered. "Hey. I didn't-"

 _"You thought it._ I just said it out loud."

I sighed. " _Well, you got a host now. Me._ "

 _"It was the worms, Becky. They had needs. It wasn't me."_

"And how do I know _my body_ isn't doing ` _wasn't me_ ' shit right now?"

 _"I've been working with it. Training it._ "

"Bullshit! _It trained you to be its zombie!"_

 _"Like I said, a human body can't take it. Only_ you _can make something with it."_

The thought gave me pause.

"You trusted _Maria,_ didn't you? _She babysat you!"_

I sighed. A Sarah clone that took over an alien's body, then absorbed a worm colony. I remembered that moment when Ernie left me alone with her. Seeing those worms peeking out of her exoskeleton was unsettling, but they never came close to me.

Ernie had just tucked me into a sleeping bag. Maria placed a claw on her shoulder plate. "I'll watch them."

The other alien stared at her with concern. "Are you sure that's safe with those worms in your body?"

"If there's anything useful I've learned from the simulations, it's that all animals are basically colonies of organisms in a body container. So far the worms are behaving harmoniously as part of mine. To put it another way, my body is like the United States before the Mexican-American War, and I've just gained a quarter of Texas."

"Maria, you're the one I trust above all others, with the exception of God Himself. If you say that the children are safe in your care, I believe it."

"Maria understood that a good being could take over the colony, make it into a force for good," said the Sarah in my mind.

"Look. Sarah. _We don't have time to play with worms._ Wren's trying to take over the universe, or some other evil thing! He has to be stopped now!"

"Time works differently here. But you're right. We need to hurry. _Take a look around. Focus._ "

"Why am I in the Big Bang Theory?"

"Why not?" Sheldon quipped. _"Not a fan of my show?_ I'm hurt!" Canned Laughter Track 2A.

"He's your doubt," Sarah said.

"I am so much more than that! _I'll have you know I am also a Nobel Prize winning physicist!_ "

"Skepticism, Atheism, apathy and hopelessness."

Sheldon looked tickled. _"Please. I'm blushing."_

"Why's he in a cocoon?" I asked.

 _"Do you actually want him to roam free?"_

 _"I could write some_ really interesting things _on that markerboard,"_ Sheldon suggested.

I frowned. _"He's...fine where he is."_

"Suit yourself, missy. _If you find yourself lying awake trying to figure out what's so_ special _about_ Special Relativity _, don't come crying to me!..._ Hint: It has absolutely nothing to do with low fat cereals... _Or maybe it does!_ " Studio laughter.

 _"Can I kill him?"_ said the big xenomorph with my face.

Sheldon shot the thing an incredulous look. _"Please. I'd like to see you try!_ Why, _I'm just a collection of philosophies and ideas!_ If you _even try_ to kill me, you'll discover that I'm like the Lernaean Hydra of Greek Mythology (or the Marvel Comics, to a lesser extent). The ideas will just pop up in a different form, in a fashion similar to Disney's live action remakes of popular animated films." Canned Laughter Track 2c.

I rolled my eyes in annoyance. "And what's _that thing_ over there with my face?"

"That's the xenomorph part of you," Sarah said.

"But I don't have a xenomorph part of me!"

The girl gave me this look that seemed to say, `Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?'

 _"I'm hungry and I want to make babies!"_ The creature loomed uncomfortably close to me. _"Lots and lots of babies!"_

The thing made me afraid, not because it was scary... _but because it wasn't_. It felt... _seductive._

 _"Now that's a gal with priorities!"_ Sheldon remarked. " _Adapt, evolve, and multiply, just like nature intended. A plus for enthusiasm._ I'd clap, but I can't move my arms."

"Shut up!" I yelled at him, but he only mocked me. _"Ooh!_ Someone's _getting hot flashes! Far be it for me to interfere with your biological imperative!"_ And he made a sizzling noise with his mouth. Cue Laugh Track Number 1.

"So where's the human side of me?" I asked. _"Where's the good part?"_

A white suited figure set a whiskey decanter full of milk down on the kitchen counter, pouring a finger of the beverage into a crystal glass. The eye not concealed by a black `eyepatch' lens twinkled at me. _"Right here, sweetie."_ The studio audience got cued to say _`awww.'_

Archangel swallowed the milk, grimacing like he'd just taken a mouthful of Scotch.

The man wiped his mustache. "Listen, you two. Why don't you leave Rebecca alone? _Can't you see she's been through enough?"_

 _"Fine,"_ Sheldon groaned. _"But I double dog dare you to show her what's in the fridge!"_

I shivered. "What's...in the fridge?"

"Oh... _nothing too important, just what's left of your humanity. You won't miss it."_

"I'm sorry, baby." Archangel pulled the handle on the appliance.

The interior of the fridge looked exactly like the escape pod I'd died in, complete with my mutilated body, mouth frozen in a scream.

 _"On the plus side,"_ said the man in the cocoon. _"You'll never have to experience the excruciating annoyances of puberty! In that respect, I actually envy you!"_

"But I _want_ to know what that feels like!" I whimpered. "I...only know what it's like to be _this thing!"_

The refrigerator door slammed shut, and I saw _Ripley_ leaning over the counter, pointing an accusing finger at me. "That's right! _Those things aren't human! They don't care about anything or anyone!_ All they know how to do is _kill_ , _rape_ and _breed_! The world, _the universe_ , would be better off if we wiped every last one of them out of existence!"

I agreed with her, but then she looked me in the eyes and said, " _I'm including you in that statement. You're dead to me._ It'd make me happy if you just killed yourself right now. In fact, _I hope to God those worms are destroying you from the inside out!"_

I started crying.

Archangel put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "God loves you, Rebecca, even if no one else does. Remember that."

I sighed, gave him a nod.

 _"Whatever fictions you need to make you feel better,"_ Sheldon mocked.

Archangel cast him an irritated glance. "Ignore him. You can't partake of heaven if you let him out of his cocoon."

Our prisoner _was_ trying to get out. I could sense him readying another cutting attack on my faith.

"Rebecca," Archangel said. "If you believe there's no afterlife, you _actually will die and see nothing more when you depart from the land of the living._ That is the hell of the unbeliever. Do you want that, or do you want to continue to exist on another plane?"

"Even if it's not real?"

"It's a fifty-fifty shot, honey. Even if there's nothing, wouldn't you rather have that hope? _That peace?_ That state of mind at the end of your life? _And if you're wrong about there being nothing, there is a whole world you can enter after death..._ You've got to live and believe like there is one, regardless of whether or not it exists, or you'll never go there. You know what they say, you miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take."

My answer came out in a sob. _"I'm sticking with you, I mean,_ with God _. I can't afford not to take that chance."_

 _"Color me unsurprised,"_ Sheldon groaned.

 _"When's the last time you read a bible?"_ Archangel asked me. It wasn't really a question, more of a... _mild scolding_ , if that's the right way to put it.

 _"A while."_

 _"You should read it more. I think it would help you."_

I smirked a little. "Could you tell me the answer to just one question? Why did God give me the parts to lay deadly larva into people's bodies?"

 _"You tell it, sister!"_ Sheldon shouted from the couch.

"I can't answer that one, sweetie. My job is only to guide and protect."

I gazed sadly at Ripley. "What is _she_ in relation to all this?"

 _"That_ is the human being you aspire to be," Sarah said. "With all the associated self loathing. She also symbolizes your mother, motherhood in general, and your femininity."

 _"I_ am her femininity!" Alien Me shouted. _"You heard it yourself! You're dead to her!"_

Ripley made no protest. "That's right, Newt. _You are_ dead to me."

"I know all of this already!" I cried. "Sarah, why are you showing me this!"

 _"But do you really know? I think if you did, we wouldn't be here right now."_

"Sarah, if you're a figment like everyone else, what are _you_ supposed to represent?"

"Becky, I'm a disembodied spirit. Soon I will have to depart. I am only here to help you out. To help you understand yourself. And the worms."

"In answer to your question, Becky," Sheldon said. _"She's a psychologist archetype your mind has constructed."_

"Okay. _Whatever_. The thing I don't understand is, what am I supposed to do?"

"You need to _decide_ , Becky," said Sarah. "Make yourself into what you want, so you can make the worms into something."

I glanced at a mirror, but I had no reflection, like a vampire. I gave the girl a desperate look. "Can I make myself... _not an alien?_ "

Sheldon laughed at me. " _If you can do that,_ you should show me. _I always wanted to rearrange the laws of physics to do my bidding._ "

I gave Alien Me a look that said `Please kill him.'

Alien Me didn't move. She just gave me a look of her own.

Sheldon spasmed, arched his back. A white object exploded from the chest area of his cocoon, covered in blood.

The guy wasn't phased in the slightest. " _Feel better?"_

He glanced down at the toothy larva that had emerged from his body. _"How cute!...The miracles of nature!"_ And then he actually started doing baby talk with it. _"Aww! Aren't you just adorable! You really ought to have one of these! They're so much fun_. Presuming the existence of a creator, why would one give you awesome chest bursting genitalia if he, she or it didn't actually intend for you to use it? Or the secondary mouth, I might add...?"

"There's no presuming," I argued. "God exists."

Archangel raised his hand in a cautioning gesture. "Rebecca, remember that parable of the pearls before swine?"

"Parable? I thought that was just an old comic strip."

"No, sugar. It was a parable. The meaning is that if you have a piece of wisdom that you treasure, and you're facing someone that's got their mind stubbornly set, and are content to wallow in their own spiritual filth, don't throw that treasure to them, or they'll just come after you and destroy your faith."

 _"Ooh. I think I should add that line to your biography, Becky."_ the skeptic said, dripping with sarcasm. _"I bet it'll sell_ a lot _of books!"_

Spotting a stereo in the corner, I switched it on, playing _Flowers on the Wall_ , one of my parents' favorites. I cranked it up and set it in front of Sheldon to drown him out, the symbolic version of sticking my fingers in my ears and going la la la.

Ripley's ice cold glare never left her face. She kept looking at me with hate. "I don't care what you think you are. You deserve to die."

"You need to establish a balance between your selves," Sarah said. "Only then can you be your own true person."

I scowled. "That's _not_ going to happen."

 _"Well then you'd better kill yourself right now and get it over with, missy!"_ Sheldon suggested.

"I don't know what to do!" I cried. "I don't want to be alive anyway! I want to be with mommy and daddy!"

I got no sympathy from Sheldon. _"Oh wah wah wah. I'm cocooned to a couch with your baby projecting from my internal organs, but you don't see me complaining!"_ Cue Laugh Track 7B.

I frowned at Sarah. "So what am I doing here?"

 _"Becoming whole."_

 _"But I am whole!"_

Ripley pointed her gun at me, slapped in a magazine. _"I'll_ make a few holes in you..."

Alien Me rushed up to the counter. _"And I'll make a hole in your head! Then we can be_ free _to breed_ and _kill!"_

"You're not whole," Sarah insisted. "You have no concept of self."

"She has self loathing," said Ripley. _"That's what's important."_

"Is it, Becky? _Is she right?"_

I didn't know what to say, except... "Without her, I'll just kill every human being I see."

 _"That's right, Newt,"_ Ripley said. _"It's in your nature. As long as you're alive, you put the lives of every human being you meet in danger. Your body can't be trusted._ "

 _"I can be trusted_ _sometimes_ ," Alien Me protested.

"That's true," I had to admit. "I let Johner and his men and several guys live."

 _"Because of me and my gun,"_ Ripley said. " _Because of your self loathing."_

"There's another word for that," Archangel said. " _Self control._ And you don't need to hate yourself to get it."

Ripley wasn't impressed. _"What you really need to do is_ commit suicide. _That way_ everybody will be safe."

Archangel shook his head. _"There's a better way, Rebecca."_

"It isn't the right time for that anyway," I said. "Wren's still out there."

I suddenly heard knocking.

"I think you should answer that," Sarah said.

With an uneasy frown, I marched to the main door, touched the knob, and it swung open on its own.

It was big Ernie, with a half completed crafts project in her chitinous `hands.'

The `TV audience' erupted in applause.

 _"I sewed you a blanket from your dead parents' clothing,"_ she said, prompting Laugh Track 3F.

I slammed the door in her face like George Jefferson.

I shot the little girl and indignant glare. _"Sarah? What the hell is this?"_

 _"An attempt at cohesion. She represents the a faithful xenomorph who doesn't harm human beings."_

 _"She killed my brother! You call that cohesion!"_

 _"Becky..."_ Sarah scolded.

"What! I hate her!"

Becky, she wouldn't be here if she didn't have some kind of personal significance, some piece that can make you a whole person."

I swallowed. "I... _I guess I don't hate her that much..."_

I cautiously cracked the door open again. Canned chuckling noises from the studio audience.

The alien carefully folded up her craft project. "I'm just an element of your mind, Becky, but in my defense, you cannot say beyond a shadow of a doubt that I actually killed your brother. Bear in mind that I _always tried_ to be helpful to you."

 _"You were a failure."_

Ernie leaned closer. "Then take the parts of me you like and use them to be someone better."

"Ripley was ten times better than you could ever be! Goodbye!" And I slammed the door in her face again.

A low foghorn noise filled the apartment.

When I opened the door to see what happened, I found _Ripley's clone_ standing before me, eyeless baby cradled in her arms. _"You rang?"_

Cue crusty old _Addams Family_ laugh track.

 _"How's_ that _for an acceptable self image?"_ Sarah asked. "She represents your mother figure, _but she's also an alien clone, so she's a little more understanding about who you are, and your situation."_

 _"Perhaps..."_ Clone Ripley bounced her baby. _"But I don't care if she exists."_

"If you reach out to her," Sarah said. _"You can find out if she accepts you."_

 _"She'll also have to love Ernie."_ The woman cuddled the baby close to her chest. _"We're kind of a package deal."_

I looked around her, into the hallway, but saw no other candidates.

 _"You know there's nobody else you really identify with."_

"What about mom and dad?"

 _"You really didn't,_ did you? _It's been so long..."_

I sighed, spreading my arms for the woman. "Let's bring it in for a hug."

The studio audience went _`awww'_ again.

"No!" the other Ripley shouted, waving her gun. _"That thing is an impostor! She doesn't love you!"_

 _"You don't love me either,"_ I growled.

The original Ripley shot bloody holes through her clone's head and chest, and even through the baby, but it didn't destroy them. Instead, the clone, bleeding from her wounds, returned my hug.

I blinked, and _I_ was Ripley's clone, bleeding, with a dying baby in my arms.

Sarah touched me, and the baby, and the wounds started closing up. "This is emotional pain, intended to drive your hand to suicide. You are realizing that it doesn't hurt, now that you're disowning the other Ripley. The wounds close slowly because you still treasure the time when she loved you. Accept those memories as they are, and you will be truly healed."

With tears in my eyes, I made the attempt. It was slow going, but it eventually worked.

In the mirror, I now saw the Ripley clone's face.

I stared at the baby. "What's this?"

 _"Potential._ A child not born from a dead human. You heard about how Ernie had his without killing anyone..."

"Yeah, but he also killed someone to have others."

 _"That's why you hold Sammy._ It represents the pure child."

I glanced back at Alien Me. " _What about that?_ _I'm whole._ Why isn't _that_ gone?"

"That is your ` _Id_ ', your bodily impulse."

 _"I lust!"_ the creature cried.

"Now that you have a self image, we can find an acceptable place for your Id."

I only had to think about it, and Alien Me suddenly wore a dog collar, its chain fastened securely to a wall.

 _"Thank God!"_ said Ripley.

I cast an apologetic glance at Archangel. He only shrugged. "I think that response might be appropriate as a prayer."

 _"He sounds like me,"_ Ernie said from the doorway.

 _"Package deal,"_ I muttered to myself, stepping into the hallway.

I gave the big alien a hug.

She didn't disappear, though.

"Ernie is now an object of romantic fixation," Sarah explained. _"An ideal."_

"I...I stammered. _"That's weird."_ Then, after a moment's thought, "Wait, _I'm_ the one with the exoskeleton. How-"

The moment I said this, I and Ripley switched bodies, and kept switching like those shape-shifting guys on _A Scanner Darkly_.

"Oh no!" I cried. "I've lost myself!"

"It's okay, Becky. You're trying to balance the masculine and feminine energy within yourself. Ripley, in some ways, _is masculine, but she's also a woman, but the big scary qualities of our female xenomorph friend are also masculine._ "

 _"Guess that's why I went after Vela_ and _Distephano."_

As if I'd cast a magic spell, I suddenly found myself passionately kissing Distephano, all these powerful untapped feelings rising to the surface.

When I pressed him to my exoskeleton, exploring his mouth, I suddenly noticed _I_ had a chain around my neck, trailing all the way to that fastening bolt on the back wall, but I, in this fantasy, had stopped caring.

I kissed, then suddenly found myself passing a gooey egg down his throat. The man struggled, looking horrified and incredibly unhappy.

Okay, it's a fantasy, so he enjoyed it a little, but then it got real and he stopped having fun. I had to pull back the reigns.

A surprise gunshot is a scene in a movie or TV show where two people fight over a gun, you hear a shot, and the person you least expect to get shot falls over dead. What happened next was kind of like that.

I became Ripley, and Ernie's tether snapped back, rocketing her across the apartment, into that darkened steel corner I'd placed her in.

"I'm sorry," I said to my choking victim.

Distephano threw up and ran away. Vela, who had been lurking on the other side of the door, disappeared too.

"I still hate myself," I told the little girl. "And this is why."

Sarah pointed to the worms. _"Maybe they can fix that."_

Sheldon's model was made up of several red and white orbs, suspended by the threadworms, all assuming a rigid cylindrical shape. I reached out for it, but then withdrew my hand. "We don't have time for this. Wren's still expecting us to do something."

"I know."

"How much time has passed anyway?"

"Sixty seconds."

"We need something that can stop Wren."

"Removing your probe _probably should_ be your first priority then..."

I touched the model, and the whole thing fell apart, colored orbs and tapeworms flooding the apartment floor.

 _"Do you know how long it took me to build that!"_ Sheldon cried indignantly.

"Great," I muttered. "Now what."

"We get to work."

I and Sarah knelt down in the mess, taking stock of what we were working with.

The girl picked up a red orb and a white orb, both trailing those disgusting worms. "These _are_ literally molecules, so it's going to be a little difficult to simply piece things together."

 _"Good luck assembling that without my help,"_ Sheldon said.

The larva in his chest wiggled back and forth, then shot with a popping sound you hear in cartoons whenever a fat guy gets pulled out of a hole.

When the creature opened its mouth, it sounded like Spock from _Star Trek_. "I believe _I_ can be of assistance."

 _"You?"_ I said. "You're just a fragment of all my doubts and hopelessness! _How can you help?_ "

"Your mind has lumped science and rationality together with total unbelief. Sheldon represents the extreme end of that spectrum."

 _"So what are you?"_

 _"Logical._ I cannot prove or disprove the existence of a creator, so I will not voice opinions. Presently you face a puzzle that must be solved with rational thought."

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij waddled around the model, setting up molecules in a cylindrical arrangement.

So we got together and did like the last episode of BBT, piecing the entire model together. The larva would say "hydrogen" and I'd hand him a white orb, or "carbon" and I'd get a gray one, and so forth.

As I was passing a yellow phosphorus molecule, Sarah started doing that sparkly disappearing thing people do in _Nightmare on Elm Street_ when the sleeper wakes up.

"Hey!" I cried. "What are you doing!"

"I'm not," Sarah said. "Something's pulling on me. I'm sorry. I...don't belong here. It's time for me to go."

"Go? _Where?"_

 _"I don't know...the afterlife._ Hopefully heaven."

"Wait! Don't go! How am I supposed to do anything now? _You had all the answers!"_

 _"You have the larva to help you. And she is taking cues from the worms on how to build the model."_

Logical Larva nodded. _"You never made it to high school."_

"But-!" I stammered. _"You can't go! I need you!"_

Sarah laughed. "This is coming from someone who tried to pound my face in. _You'll be fine._ Goodbye."

And then she was gone.

We only got a quarter of our molecular model done when a bunch of shadow men materialized in the apartment. Apparently, like the lyrics to _Take A Load Off Fanny_ , _Carmen had left, but her friend the devil could stick around._

The men stood around the refrigerator, appeared behind me in the mirror, burst from Sheldon's bedroom.

As the things loomed over me, Archangel took a splintery wooden cross out of his suitcoat, attaching it to a lump of gold like I'd found on the obelisk. The two objects became a pistol. "Toss me some Christian prayers, sugar."

I thought of a few, and somehow they became a gun magazine in my hands. I threw the object to him.

The man slapped it in the gun, aimed and fired at the shadows. _"Keep working. You're almost there."_

Archangel's first couple shots missed. When his next bullet made contact, the shadow burned to ash like paper in a fireplace. "Hurry! Your faith is weak! I don't know how long I can hold them off!"

I'd been watching Logical Larva enough to understand what he was doing. Like a character in a LEGO video game, I snapped a structure together really fast, based on what had already been built, and the prompting of the worms.

The model trembled violently, collapsing into a slimy mound of...I don't know, _amino acids? Snot?_

I frowned at the mess. "Shit. Well, _at least the worms are gone..._ "

All of a sudden, the oozing mound formed itself into a beanbag chair with large googly eyes.

"The fuck?" I cried.

When I was a human kid, dad had found me an entire Mp3 library of old Peter Pan children's records. For no good reason, as I stared at the creature I'd birthed, the stereo queued up one of the songs, and the beanbag thing began to sing and dance around like Frosty the Snowman.

Even the shadows stopped and stared at the performance. Archangel took several of them down. The gun had a silencer, so it didn't interrupt the song.

 _"I'm Bob the Blob,_

 _I'm just a slob,_

 _A shapeless blob of blubber!_

 _My arms are all spaghetti,_

 _My legs are made of rubber!_

 _Oh please give me shapes_

 _For Bob the Blob to be,_

 _A shapeless blob_

 _I don't wish to be!"_

And then it just smiled at me and bounced like the character from that A Boy and His Blob video game.

"According to Wikipedia," Sheldon said. "The word `BLOB' actually stands for _Binary Image Object_. It basically means _any collection of binary data, such as images, audio or multimedia objects, stored as a single entity in a database management system."_ Mild chuckling from the studio audience.

 _"Cute,"_ I groaned.

Since I was surrounded, I said, "Bob, make a hole in the floor."

"What's a hole?" the blob asked stupidly.

I pointed to the floor. "It's a...opening. A circle."

 _"A circle? What's a circle?"_ It asked the same dumb question on the recording.

I indicated it with my hands, and the blob made me a hole.

I looked down. Through the opening, I could see one of those museums they always show in spy movies and crime shows, red laser lights crisscrossing marble tiles to indicate where you could possibly trip an alarm.

"What's down there?"

"It is probable we are viewing a metaphor of your brain and neural pathways," Logical Larva commented. "I believe it may be unwise to disrupt them in any way."

Archangel blew away more shadow creatures.

"You think I can find the probe down there?" I asked.

 _"That appears to be a logical assumption."_

I frowned. I couldn't get a good look at anything from my vantage point. It was just a bunch of treasures in display cases. "How am I supposed to tell where anything is?"

Bob the Blob helpfully shaped himself into a periscope, probably because he was in my brain, and knew I'd be asking for it.

The probe, a rusty foreign thing that didn't match the natural order of my gray-green matter, stood glowing on an iron pedestal surrounded by alarm devices.

When I returned to the hole, Bob turned into a harness with a cable, one end secured to the plate we'd chained my subconscious `Id' to. I donned the harness, slowly descending into the museum.

I stopped just inches above a laser beam.

I didn't know how any of this operated, I just lived in it. Judging from my previous surgical attempts, though, blocking any neural transmitter was bad news, possibly even fatal. I'd have to be careful.

My slimy tether snapped abruptly, and I dropped to the floor.

Right in the path of a neurotransmitter.


	47. Chapter 52: Jewel Thief

The moment the neuron flickered on, Bob's worms, _actually a tentacle now_ , snapped down, yanking me out of the path of the beam.

I stared in disbelief. "You _saved_ me!"

 _"Duh what are friends for?"_ Suspended high above the museum, I looked around. Although an untidy jumble of exhibits that could conceal them, I saw no worms anywhere.

" _You left everything untouched?_ "

 _"Uh-huh! It was so pretty, I didn't want to damage it like I did the other ones."_

I shuddered as I thought about the 'unpretty' ones. "Uh... thanks."

"My pleasure, Becky. _I hate to see you sad!"_

Since it was limited only by my imagination, my museum stretched on for what seemed like eternity, but it had a Pac-Man- like maze of free standing walls set up for framed pictures, like a gallery.

With the exception of the big rusty probe, nothing in the museum was one hundred percent unfamiliar to me. If I thought long enough about any exhibit, the significance of anything became obvious.

Well, _except for the hazy memories._ Those I could only view from one angle, no matter where I moved, or how carefully I tilted my head. They'd turn their front side away from me like the flasher lady on one of dad's novelty beer glasses.

I asked Bob to bring me closer to the probe.

My captors, intending the object to never be removed had inserted the object close to my brain stem. The nearer I got to it, the more laser beams I saw criss-crossing the area.

Already I could see the body memories of myself running, jumping, climbing, punching, cutting things with scissors, tying my shoes, any motor skill I could possibly use. If I crossed one of those sensors, _something_ would get interrupted. Maybe I'd lose control of my bowels, or not breathe, or suddenly drop a malformed egg...

"Bob,"I said. " _I can't get in there._ "

"Duh, what can _I_ do about it?"

I frowned. _"You're made of worms!_ Can't you somehow... _Go around the beams?_ "

" _But how will we get the probe out?_ "

"Can you... _drill down through the floor or something_?"

"Duh, _there isn't any floor!_ "

"Then what's the probe sitting on?"

" _Brain tissue?_ "

Apparently Bob lacked that kind of thing. "Can you drill into _that_?"

"Maybe, but _there's too many lasers_...even down there."

"Can you... _make a floor?_ "

" _Wouldn't that block the lasers?_ "

"What about... _a mirror?_ Maybe _reflect_ a laser somewhere else?"

"Duh, I don't know if a mirror is a good idea. Even if I can make myself reflective, it might be like turning a death Ray from the Death Star... _on the Death Star_."

"Can't you aim it at a... _receptor_ then? You know, _not hit any tissue?_ "

"Duh, _I don't think you'd wanna do_ that. You might pee when you really want to breathe, or, or, the other way around."

"Then what do _you_ suggest?"

"I can _block things_ like a drug...or a mental disorder... except... _different._ "

"Okay. _Do that, then._ "

He sighed. "Becky, _if I do that, I might block a transmitter that you need!"_

I groaned in frustration. " _Glasses, then. Can you make me glasses that show me what a laser goes to, so I can cross the beam without dying?"_

He created me a pair.

When I saw what most of the beams operated, the solution presented itself.

I _could_ use mirrors. It would be a tight squeeze, but if I directed the lasers the right way, It wouldn't interfere with anything super important. Bob's 'mirror' could absorb the beams of energy that told my brain that someone was injuring my body, or I was hungry or getting sexually stimulated. Don't care.

Since I could see what I was working with, I could also use Bob to block certain transmitters. I gave myself an artificial coma, no moving body parts except the breathing, the heart and so forth. That shut off several lasers, and gave me some working room.

I had a habit of grinding my teeth, and making involuntary spasms in my sleep, so I had Bob reflect those impulses to do other things, like void waste or make my lungs take extra breaths. Anything remotely resembling a wet dream, or a random shot from what served as this body's pituitary gland would cause my tail or my fingers to spasm instead of hitting the genitalia. Again, all to clear a space to move the probe out of the danger area.

I dove through the glowing circle of laser beams, working to remove the probe's glass case.

Upon closer examination, I decided I needed to to do more than just the jewel thief routine. The display itself did not belong there, it was digging into my brain tissue.

I squatted down and grabbed the display at the base, but it was like lifting yourself up by your own pants. It didn't work.

Bob, noticing my predicament, separated himself in two, sending a smaller blob through the circle of lasers. The slime coursed over my body, solidifying into a sort of armor or _power suit_. In between Bob seeping through the 'green matter', and me exerting some effort (apparently alien brains can flex), we pried the display out of my brain tissue, hurriedly hefting it through the opening in the lasers. The newly opened wounds bled, but Bob slimed together a few careful clots to prevent me from having some kind of fatal event.

Bob removed the blockers he set up, _and_ his mirrors, returning my body to normal as we rushed to a damage neutral area: My right brain artistic side. If I blew something there, the worst result would be either seeing music as color, or being so right brain dead that I start writing math books and getting orgasms from watching chess competitions.

I thought I was doing good until I started seeing an army of dark shapes emerging from behind the exhibits. One of them stepped out from behind a freestanding wall spray painted with the words 'Gunter, glieben glauchen globen'. Another materialized beside a display of fuzzy monsters inspired by Doctor Seuss storybooks. I ran from them, dodging the lasers.

Archangel descended from the ceiling on some kind of Bat Rappel, firing at the shadow men chasing me. The men burned to cinder, but more came to take their place.

I tripped over a laser beam, causing an explosion of flowers.

When I stumbled forward, I found myself back on the Big Bang Theory, but now I was in the apartment's outside hallway, and had the probe tucked under my arm.

I rushed down the staircase, to the famous 'Broken Elevator Set.'

Ding! Despite there being tape across the doors saying the elevator was out of service, it came open, and I found myself staring at a little curly haired Oriental woman with glasses.

"Oh! Hello... _Rebecca_!" The woman said. " _I was looking for you!_ "

Cue laugh track 47

For a long time I just stood staring at her, not moving an inch. So many bad memories. Like her husband, she'd been possessed by the worms, and killed a lot of people.

"This is the best way out, Becky," Bob urged. "It'll take you right out your mouth."

When I didn't move, he added, "Becky! The shadow men are coming!"

With no small amount of reluctance, I pushed aside my ill feelings toward the woman and stepped into the elevator.

The door closed and we went down, neither one of us saying a word to each other. The Muzak system was playing Billy Joel's _The Longest Time_.

The woman didn't talk, she just turned around and faced the wall.

The doors came open a few minutes later, and I was out.

 _Literally out._

I now leaned over the throne in the control chamber, white slime oozing out of my mouth.

I coughed, and out came the brain probe in a glob of slime.

"Becky, _I'm growing impatient,_ " Wren called. "I gave you an order, and I expect you to follow it."

I turned around, giving him a nasty smile. "Yeah? _And what are_ you _going to do about it?"_

The man reached into his pocket, pushed a button on his device.

A second later, his smug, confident facial expression changed to `Oh shit.'

My smile widened.

I went on the offensive.


	48. Chapter 48: The End

Note: I edited some of the previous chapters. Not quite finished with the revisions, but I _am_ done with the story.

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The stereo in my head was playing the _Airwolf_ theme song.

Responding to my mental impulses, Bob formed himself into a pair of large battle axes as I leapt at my enemy.

Lacy came charging at me, but Mary, Ruth and Jeremy ganged up on her before she could adequately run interference.

Wren turned into smoke, but I anticipated this, flinging my axes in both diagonals.

The first one struck the man, now off to my left side, in the chest.

The second one struck the same man, off to the right, also in the chest.

Bleeding and still impaled, he materialized at center, lifting me off the floor by my neck. _"It seems you've forgotten that I'm keeping your large alien friend hostage."_

 _"Oh I haven't forgotten,"_ I gasped. "What _you_ seem to have forgotten is _how to be dead!"_

 _"Say goodbye to your friend."_ Wren took the device out of his pocket, pushing a button.

Nothing happened.

 _"I make device to block signal, okay?"_

The fact that Vela was there didn't surprise me. What _did_ surprise me was how she came riding in on Ernie's back like some kind of knight on a horse.

Ernie roared, hitting Wren with a backhand. The man sailed across the room, crashing into a wall. His device shattered.

Bruno and Claudia, having apparently found a way back to the chamber, rushed my weird nonhuman `chew toy', attempting to remove the jamming device from her hands. Vela fought back.

Claudia, a little less injured than her companion, did manage to wrest the device out of her grip, but by then it was too late. Matt and Zeke pinned her to the floor, arguing about whether they should kill the humans.

As Wren groaned and staggered to his feet, Distephano, Call, Johner, and Vriess, apparently free from mind or soul control, opened fire. Christie, unable to see much of anything, merely crouched behind his allies.

"Here," Ripley said to him. _"You're not doing anything..."_ She handed him her baby, drawing a boot knife.

I'm not sure how he did it, but somehow Wren magically turned the bullets into flying cartoon mice with butterfly wings, creatures that giggled and took off where they weren't supposed to. Ripley attempted to stab him, but he used his power and flung her into a wall.

Equally logic defying: _Purvis had made an appearance_.

The gangly man came out of nowhere, screaming as he grabbed Wren from behind, pulling him close to his body.

Blood sprayed from both their bodies, an alien larva exploding from our enemy's chest.

Wren screamed for a moment, appeared to die...

But then his eyes turned a solid black, and the axes stuck in his body melted around the larva, sucking it back in, the creature making a ghastly shriek that died in gurgling bubbles.

The man's teeth gritted together, and evil grin spreading upon his cheeks as a long black blade slowly emerged from his hand.

I remembered how Maria made comments to Ernie about capturing a portion of the evil worms and making a good colony out of them. "Annexing Texas", she compared it to.

 _Well, Wren had just "annexed" them back._ I parried with my blob sword just seconds before his weapon came up to stab me through the lung.

I parried, swung wildly in counterattack.

The stereo in my head now played Tyr's _Take Your Tyrant._ Someone had put it in my MP3 player during my imprisonment, and now it kinda became my fight music.

Our swordfighting skills were more or less evenly matched. In other words, we fought like geeks with foam swords at a fantasy roleplay gathering, no style or skill other than the intent to kill each other. We artlessly hammered at each other's weapons, scoring hits at random.

Seeing that she was coming after me, Ripley pounced on Lacy, and the two wrestled for a few tense moments.

Ripley pinned her to the floor, but then the alien struck her in the head with a tool box, leaving her on the floor, clutching her head.

Ssunamrozedrah and Ruth ran to help me, but at this point, Claudia appeared to have recovered her own `invisible fence' device, and the two aliens fell to the floor in convulsions. Wren grinned and beat me with his sword.

Unfortunately, unlike real swords, no amount of bludgeoning could dislodge our weapons. It became a game of trying to wear the opponent down.

Worse, our weapons, being made of slime, frequently glommed onto each other and got stuck, leaving us punching and kicking each other in attempts to break free.

You'd think that would make it easy for me to kill the man, but no, he was hopped up on evil demonic power and could hit hard enough to cause me pain.

Our swords glommed again, couldn't break apart, and suddenly, Wren laughed as his sword, now black and swelling larger than mine, swallowed my weapon, then my hand.

I fought and struggled to get away, but the stuff was already entering my body, seeping into my shell, overwhelming my friend Bob with something dark and evil.

Something touched my brain, and I heard the man speaking into my mind. _Thank you for this...blob, Becky. I really appreciate how you changed the worms. After I take your body, I intend to multiply it, use it to create an army. No longer will I be limited to non-corporeal shadows. I will have solidity! I will be unstoppable!_

 _"It sounds like you'll be king,"_ I said. _"Over everything."_

Wren smiled, seemingly flattered. "Why yes. _I suppose I will._ "

 _"Then take your damn throne!"_ I screamed, throwing him into the death chair.

"Mom," I called to the android consciousness. _"He's hurting me."_

Wren paled as the interface equipment on the throne shifted lower. "What are you doing! _Stop this!"_

He sent an impulse into my mind, to make me release him, but then a pair of bands snapped down on his wrists, and additional set securing his ankles.

I saw the man turning to smoke, but he couldn't go anywhere because our blobs were connected.

He tried to trade places with me, but I was too familiar with the chair, and knew when I wasn't where I was supposed to be.

My arms became enveloped in a glowing white suit coat, just like the one Archangel wore. I focused hard, and Wren stayed put.

"You wanted power," Mara said to Wren. "I'll give it to you."

"No!" the man yelled. "Not like this!"

The machine's harpoons burst from their launchers, shattering the man's temples.

Wren's body flinched and convulsed like it were being electrocuted.

And then, everything started crumbling, breaking down.

 _"Mara!"_ I cried. _"What's happening to the ship!"_

"Wren is attempting to restructure the system, but his mind is divided between restraining you and fighting `Della Reese' for control of the operating environment. The human brain cannot maintain efficient control of both of these tasks simultaneously."

I was still connected to the man by means of the oozing blob. I kept trying to pull away, but the man's control over the blobs, or _blob_ , hadn't diminished. "Please! _Do something!"_

I was answered by a hole opening in the wall. Beyond, I could see a corridor, leading, apparently, to the vehicle bays.

"I have opened a gateway to the Betty," Mara said in an amplified voice. "All crew and passengers make their way to the vehicle immediately."

Vriess frowned in dismay. _"Just like that? Jump through a magic wormhole simply because you tell us to?"_

"The station has become unstable. You may never have another chance."

 _"Hey,"_ Johner said. _"We_ did _enter a magic portal to get here."_ He glanced at his disfigured friend. "You coming, Christie?"

The man swallowed. _"We still don't know where the fuck we are."_

"I will attempt to maintain a gateway to earth when you leave the station," Mara said. "But you must hurry."

Johner suddenly looked uncertain. _"How about you open a portal to earth, and let us-"_

 _"What about the shit!"_ Vriess hissed.

Furrowing his brow, Johner hefted his small friend on his back. _"Scratch that. C'mon, guys..."_

Distephano followed him to the portal dragging Christie along with him. Call and Ripley (with her baby) trailed close behind.

It seemed Wren had been listening. Right away, I felt some of his power over my... _slime_ depart, and _I could actually break free from his clutches._

Unfortunately, that also made the portal shrink and look unstable.

"Guys!" I shouted. _"Go! Now!"_

Attempting to buy the pirates more time, I stuck my blob sword (or rather, scalpel) into Wren's chest, attempting to extract the larva.

It worked. The portal stabilized, and I again found myself under attack.

Johner's men stepped through the rift. Purvis probably would have come too, if he hadn't been dead.

"Wait!" Bruno shouted. _"Take us with you!"_

 _"Sorry. No backstabbers."_ And Johner threatened them away with his gun.

Lacy pushed past them, but only found the weapon turned on _her_. " _That statement includes you._ Sorry, _no exotic pets_."

 _"You're taking Ripley, aren't you?"_

"Ripley's baby is half human."

 _"So am I!"_

"Back off or you eat a bullet."

"Last time, those bullets came out as cartoon mice."

Johner gave her a menacing smile, pulling back the hammer. _"I changed clips. I'd be_ happy _to test them out!"_

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij backed away.

The man glanced at Ripley's baby. _"That thing doesn't bite, does it?"_

The woman smirked. _"Only when he's hungry."_

She glanced back at her Ss'sik'chtokiwij friends, implying she wanted to take them with.

"Sorry, babe. _We're running a risk going through customs as it is."_

Ripley watched Johner step through the portal, glanced back at her Ss'sik'chtokiwij kin, then held her baby to hear breast. "Go. I don't belong there."

The man stared at her incredulously. _"You heard the robot! This place is going to blow!"_

A ghost of a smile appeared on the woman's face. "Well then, I sincerely hope she's wrong." She waved goodbye to Call. "Good luck on earth."

"Dammit, Ripley!" Johner tried to grab her, but before he could move, the portal closed.

"Wait!" I called. _"The egg!"_ But it was too late. The portal had closed before Wren's `gift' could be moved.

"Oh God," moaned Bruno. "We're going to die here!"

"What egg?" Ssunamrozedrah asked me.

I nodded my head toward the incubator.

She marched up to it, attempted to pick it up, but it proved to be nothing but a hologram. She cursed Ss'sik'chtokiwij words in annoyance.

 _Give me your body_ , Wren said into my mind. _I'll show you where the egg is hidden._

"No deal. I can't let you get away with your evil scheme."

 _"Then the child inside the egg will die."_

"He'll probably die anyway. You're that kind of guy."

 _"That only shows you don't know me as well as you think you do."_

 _"I know enough."_

That seemed to be sufficient response for the moment, but after a pause, Wren said, _It's female. We did scans._

"It's dead, so it doesn't matter. Best to save those we can actually save."

 _"Suit yourself."_

I was still nowhere near the Ss'sik'chtokiwij stuck inside Wren's body.

I only got partway there when I saw its shiny white head poking out and grinning at me. " _Looking for this?_ " it said in Wren's voice. ".. _.It's mine_. When this human form has outlived its usefulness, I will take it for my own!"

 _"There's a_ Ss'sik'chtokiwij _baby in there,"_ I said. _"It has its own mind. What does_ she _think about this arrangement?"_

The larva growled and shook itself. _"Mine!"_

"No!" the man voice cried, and then the larva sunk back into his chest cavity.

"Mara," I said. "Are Johner's people safe?"

"Yes, but they need to hurry. Big Bird and I cannot maintain the portal indefinitely."

"Can you...provide a way out for my... _alien friends_ too?"

She paused. "The humans have yet to fly the Betty away from the station, so we _may_ be able to open a gateway for a brief period, _if you will help me._ "

 _Distract him,_ I thought. _Right._

Using my blob scalpel, I worked on freeing the larva from the man's chest.

A shimmering gateway opened along the back wall, leading into a jungle of blue foliage. _"Please evacuate through the doorway,"_ Mara said in Ss'sik'chtokiwij. _"There is food and breathable air."_

None of the Ss'sik'chtokiwij seemed eager to go.

Wren knew what I was doing. It was only a matter of time.

 _"It's a new home!"_ I yelled. _"You want to be free or die here?"_

The blob was helping me make inroads into Wren's consciousness, to read his mind. I used this to keep him distracted long enough to maintain the portal for a few more minutes.

Ernie gave her children a nod. Mary, Ruth, Zeke and Jeremy stepped through.

Ssunamrozedrah stared up at her large relative. "This gateway appears to be getting smaller. If you do not go next, I fear you will not go at all."

Ernie sighed. " _But what about Newt?_ What of the others? _I came to rescue them."_

"Let me take care of that. _You. Go now."_

Her shoulder plates slumped. "Okay, dear niece. I am leaving this in your claws."

"Bye, Ernie!" I called. "I love you!"

The big Ss'sik'chtokiwij cried a little, stepped through the portal.

A pair of giant claws formed from the slime, grabbed my head, digging in so deeply that I felt pain.

Hearing my screams, Vela, Ssunamrozedrah and Ripley rushed to help, but Wren somehow opened magical portals in the floor that dropped them from the ceiling, their bodies crashing painfully on the ground.

I focused on the larva, mentally told it to fight. The black blobs retreated from my skull. "Mara, get everyone out of here!"

The portal reopened. "Danger," the android said in English. "System is unstable. Evacuate the premises immediately."

"What about us!" Claudia shouted. "You seriously expect us to-!"

A hole opened up in the floor, and both she and her associate vanished.

"Where'd you send them to?" I asked.

 _"A motel swimming pool."_

Ssunamrozedrah growled uncomfortably. Ripley stared at me in worriment.

"You are our friend," Vela said. _"You come with us, okay?"_

I shook my head. "No, Vela. I have to stay. It's the only way to stop Wren. If I move, we lose the portal, we lose everything."

Ssunamrozedrah grabbed Lacy, attempting to steer her toward the portal, but she cried, "Nuh-uh! No way! I want to go to _Earth_ , not some crazy fucking la-la land!" And so she came marching _my way_.

Growling, Ssunamrozedrah hurriedly waved Matt to the portal. Ripley cast the two an uncertain look, handed Matt the baby. "If I don't make it, take care of him. Let him know his mother loves him.

Matt gave her a grave nod, stepping through.

"Pulsa Pillow!" a male voice shouted.

Puzzled by the unfamiliarity, I glanced toward the entrance and saw a weird creature marching into the room.

The thing had a human face, but it had a large toucan's beak instead of a nose, and it wore a dress, dark purple, and a layer of splotchy brown fur covered its exposed arms and legs.

The stranger held a gun-like weapon, pointing it at us as it spoke in a foreign language.

Ssunamrozedrah snarled, balled her claws into fists.

The stranger seemed... _unsurprised_ to see such a creature. He aimed his weapon and fired. A spray of acid blood burst from the Ss'sik'chtokiwij's shoulder.

Ssunamrozedrah let out a fierce roar, leapt upon him, knocking the gun out of his hands. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you."

The stranger swallowed. "You...speak...English?"

Ssunamrozedrah slowly nodded.

"My name is Chikarra Wakeen. I am responding to a distress message sent by a _Pulsa Pillow._ Have you seen her?"

Ssunamrozedrah growled. " _You're a month late._ She's gone." She picked up the weapon, shot Chikarra in the shoulder. He screamed.

Lacy's dark shape blocked my line of sight.

"Open a portal to earth!" she shouted in my face. "Send me to Florida! New York! Anywhere! Hell, send me to the Betty for all I care! Just me the fuck to Earth! _Now!"_

"I don' think that's such a wise decision," I said. "You'll end up in a cage. Or dead."

Lacy struck me in the skull. "I don't care what the fuck you think! Earth! Pronto!"

 _"Mara..."_ I groaned.

"There are two entities occupying that body," the android answered. "Although the existence of souls cannot be proven _nor_ disproven, I have witnessed this Ss'sik'chtokiwij's change in personality, and how other Ss'sik'chtokiwij relate to her, before and after the moment of apparent _`soul transference.'_ To send her to earth would not only be harmful to human beings, it would also deprive Ernie of a beloved family member."

 _"Beloved!"_ Lacy shouted. _"Now wait a damn minute!"_

 _"She's a human in a Ss'sik'chtokiwij body?"_ I cried. "When were you going to tell me-?"

Lacy screamed, plummeting through a hole Mara created in the floor. I saw the black body drop past jungle foliage, into a lake with a loud splash. _"Perhaps the water will cool her temper,"_ the android suggested.

 _"Where did she go?"_

"The same planet. Azcaldoz." The portal in the floor disappeared.

I frowned at the droid. _"If we live through this thing, all three of us are going to have a talk."_

Whimpering and clutching his arm, Chikarra staggered to his feet. "So...Pulsa is dead?"

"No," said Ssunamrozedrah. _"She was on a craft, and something happened and it got sent off course, far away from here."_

 _"So she escaped."_

The Ss'sik'chtokiwij sighed. "You should go. This place is about to self destruct."

As Chikarra turned to go, Vela rushed up to him with some bandages. "I take care of your wound, okay?"

And she started tending his injury without permission. "You are very handsome." She tugged the hem of his skirt. "I would like very much to see what's under purple dress. We go out, yes?"

Chikarra blushed green, gave her a slight nod. I know it's stupid, but I kinda felt _jealous_.

Vela rushed up to me, giving me a hug. " _Good-bye Beck-kee!_ I am sorry I give you many probings. _I go now."_

She and Chikarra fled the chamber...by whatever means the skirted stranger had used to find us in the first place.

Relationships in fictional stories are like commercials. Only a few people in real life own the newest toy, game system, or flashy car, but everyone on the screen has one.

Everyone in a show or movie will eventually have a romantic relationship, but only maybe a quarter of the people watching those programs will ever have one. And _those_ relationships are seldom, if ever, as glamorous, fulfilling or beautiful. The programs are popular because people are by and large sad, lonely and pathetic.

This included me.

That's all to say that this goodbye, I guess, was as good as it would get.

Ripley and Ssunamrozedrah still hadn't left.

"Tell Ernie I'm following her example," I said.

Ssunamrozedrah reluctantly bowed her head.

Ripley patted me on the shell.

And then I was alone with Wren. And the dying space station.

"Mara," I said. "Did the Betty get to Earth?"

She paused. "Yes. They have escaped through the portal I created."

And then, a whole minute later, "This ship will self destruct in nine minutes."

Since everyone but me was off to safety, I briefly considered taking over the larva's body, but I didn't want to go on _that ride_ again, even if it were a good idea. Instead, I focused my energies on digging for the location of the egg, and helping the larva fight against Wren.

Wren flashed a memory to the creature, showing it how I took over my current body and put the creature in my dead human one. _Can you trust her?_ he asked.

"Can you trust him?" I countered. "He'll do the same thing to you."

I saw a flash of Wren's memories, the location of the egg. I'd dug at this memory before, but he'd thrown up walls to keep me from locating the specifics. I'd just see a room, or a door, or part of an access code. Now the answer was within my reach.

The larva questioned what I was doing. Wren told it I was going to take over the egg just like I intended to take over the larva's body. I said no, it wouldn't be fair, the creature deserves to live its own life.

Wren accused me of lying, but then I sent the larva an image of how my own life had been cut short at childhood, how I'd pressed a claw against the cryo pod, staring longingly at my own human form. "Never again," I thought.

I sent an image of me securing the egg in a safe place, trying to fly it out in a ship.

 _I understand,_ the larva said.

Without a further thought, it launched itself upwards, tearing through Wren's upper body, destroying his head, his brain. The man's thoughts disappeared into nothingness, the larva and the blob the only mind remaining.

 _Please name me,_ thought the larva.

"Chuck," I thought. "Like Charlie Brown." I sent the alien a picture.

The larva thought me a smile, sending the image of exactly where Wren had hidden the egg.

"Thank you, Chuck."

"Eight minutes to self destruct."

I pulled away from Wren's carcass with ease, running off in search of the egg.

The man had hidden it three floors below the obelisk portal thing. Mara had reached the two minute mark by the time I neared the security panel.

It seemed Wren, in overconfidence, hurry, or possibly laziness, had chosen to use an ordinary keypad to lock up his infant hostage. I used his memory of the passcode, typing with my claws, and I was in.

"One minute to self destruct."

There the egg was, in an incubator. No security devices. I could easily take it out and carry it somewhere, _if I had more time..._

There wasn't anything more I could do. I couldn't take it away from the blast. I had failed.

I could only wrap my body around the shell and hope that my exoskeleton would protect the child inside from the explosion, the depressurization.

I sat down on the floor, pressing the thing to my body.

"Thirty seconds to self destruct."

My decision to put my brain worms into the egg was mostly due to the fact that there were _holes_ in it, and I was concerned that they'd depressurize or leak once the ship came apart.

Okay, so some selfishness was involved, but only because I wanted to know what was in the egg. I could only see a vaguely humanoid blob with my heat vision, and needed to know what I was giving my life for. I prayed it wasn't just a really big chicken.

I didn't need to connect to a brain. The moment my mouth tentacles hit...placenta, amniotic fluid, or whatever it was, I sensed a presence. Intelligence.

It mostly spoke to me in feelings rather than words, but I understood their meaning, what they implied, and those became words _to me_.

The infant knew its body. Not a chicken. Arms, legs, and a tail. No exoskeleton. Something had sung to it ages ago, then it only heard the mutterings of scientists. "Eric Fiver," or "Human Donor," they said a few times. "Ippi Snarken," much more frequently.

"That...sounds like your parents."

The infant didn't know what that meant.

"Where you came from...My name is Becky. What's yours?"

 _I don't know._

"I'll call you... _Minerva._ She's a character in my favorite book. I'd call you Hermione, but nobody real has that name."

She didn't know what all that meant, so I just flashed a picture of the actress's face.

"Twenty seconds to self destruct."

 _What does that sound mean?_ the infant asked.

"Bad things."

 _What is bad?_

"We could die. Maybe just me."

 _What does that mean?_

I thought about that joke from Hitchhiker's Guide about the whale getting all excited about flying before it went splat. Minerva was confused, of course.

 _Please explain. I want to laugh too._

And then she wanted me to explain all kinds of other things. _Share! Share!_

"Pain," I sent back.

It didn't understand. _Share! Share!_

I sent the feeling more strongly. The baby recoiled, but still said _...Share?_

"I'm going to die," I thought to it.

 _What is death?_

"You'll find out soon. Look, Minerva. I don't want to take your body. I want you to be you. So when I die, just leave me alone, okay?"

 _Stay. We share._

I swallowed. "Share?"

 _Yes. You are fun playmate. I will take you in._

I whimpered, started to cry.

 _Sad. I...understand sad now. But also...love. Like the singing voice. It sing to me. I know._

I wondered if it were better to go to heaven, or join this creature, or if I could choose at all.

"One second to self destruct."

I guess I would find out soon.

Everything got enveloped in white. Objects, debris struck my body from every angle. Things were burning, melting away. Searing pain traveled through every nerve, the infant reading every sensation.

 _Oh,_ it said. _That is unpleasant. I am sorry._

"Don't be. I am helping you."

 _Love,_ it replied. _Love much! Love_ you _much! Please stay!_

"Pain," I said.

 _Yes. I understand. Love you. Mother?_

I swallowed. "No. If I stay, I will be you. We both will."

 _I do not understand._

I could feel my body burning up, turning to ash, crumbling away.

And then... _I was in a white room._

It kind of reminded me of an interrogation room from a cop show, but perfectly clean. A table, two way mirror, chairs, that's about it.

I was human again, a child once more. A door opened, and in stepped The Lord, and Archangel cradling a weird looking baby with a tail.

"Please, take a seat," said the Lord.

I did. "Where am I?"

"Heaven. Good job, faithful servant."

"You mean I... _I can see Mom and Dad?_ "

He nodded.

 _"If you so wish."_

Minerva waved to me. "Stay."

I smiled. "Hi, Minerva."

 _"As you can see, you've made an impression on this young one. Your_ ssujmarrux _were connected to her at death._ This presents you with a unique opportunity that will never again exist in human history. _I'm giving you a choice_. Depart for your eternal resting place, and _be with your family forever_ , or stay with her, _and experience womanhood_. Other humans only get one life."

My heart was pounding. _"I saved her life?"_

"Yes. Chikarra's crew recovered the egg from the debris, and got someone to care for it. Now this little one loves you."

 _"Sir, I..."_

"I must warn you, _there will be pain_. _You will join a new family_ , you will have to learn many strange things."

"So it's like reincarnation. I'd have to start over from scratch with amnesia."

"Never. But if you _show your cards_ , so to speak, it may make life very difficult for you."

I swallowed. 'Wait. _What about Minerva?_ I don't want to take her life away. _I know what that feels like._ "

"She will not die. You two will _share_ a body, just like she requested."

 _"Share,"_ the baby agreed. _"Love much."_

 _"Share,"_ I repeated. "Wouldn't they lock us in the looney bin or something?"

 _"Life always presents its challenges..._ Incidentally, she will no longer have the name you've given her after this...And if you agree to this arrangement, neither will you.

"Why...can't you...just make me a _new human body_ and start me over in a new life?"

"I don't do reincarnation."

 _"But body swapping is okay."_

"I created you. I know you do not have the mental faculties to comprehend my reasoning. I only ask you to make a choice."

A tear rolled down my cheek. "Mom and Dad...do they miss me?"

"Yes, but they are also enjoying themselves here. You need not worry. You will have _eternity_ to reunite and be together with them."

I didn't say anything, but the Lord heard my decision anyway. I found myself enclosed in warm darkness, my tiny hands pawing through a mire of thick fluid. Someone was singing. _To me. I loved much._

 _I wanna see,_ Minerva said. _Tired of this...dark thing. I wanna know...things. Be, somewhere else...like the white room._

"Me too," I thought.

Knowing it was an egg, we reached for the wall, clawing at it with our fingers. When it didn't work, I thought about birds and egg teeth and started _biting_ the wall. The... _beings_ that had sung to us stopped their crooning, murmuring excitedly.

We gnawed and clawed, for what felt like eternity.

I gave up, refusing to go on, but Minerva, having spent an incredibly long time in the dark place already, did not surrender so easily. A few more agonizingly tiresome attacks on the barrier, and we felt it weakening, and parts of the shell became... _back lit._

Soon a chunk of the wall gave way, and blinding light shone in. It took awhile for my eyes to focus.

And then I saw them. A large masculine looking face with scales, weird squirrel-like features, and ears like fish fins, a female with guinea pig-like attributes, minus sign-like sheep's eyes, mouse ears. Both seemed huge in comparison to me, both unclothed, bodies covered in soft downy fur.

Making cooing sounds I didn't understand, they smiled, beckoned to us, and when the barrier at last came down, they held us.

We would come to know them as _umma_ and _geben,_ mother and father. They would name us _Beota_ , my strange new surroundings would be my home, and we would be a family.

THE END


End file.
